Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-03-Speech-3-086"
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"en.19991103.7.3-086"2
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"Mr President, the PPE Group agrees with the rapporteur’s recommendation on the second reading and would like to thank the rapporteur for a sound and comprehensive report. I think it is very important that if an ILO treaty is concluded which does not provide binding and enforceable legislation – this also includes inspections, sanctions and remedial measures – so we fail to succeed in this, then we have not done our work properly. We would therefore back the rapporteur’s draft directive concerning seafarers on board ships calling at Community ports.
Amendment No 3 concerns exemption in the case of work activities where the employees live at considerable distances from their workplace or there is a significant distance between the employee’s various workplaces. Needless to say, this deviation applies also, but not exclusively, to the off-shore sector. Hence the need for a legal technical amendment. Similarly, Amendment No 4 is a legal technical amendment on urban transport. Amendment No 5 regulates the weekly working hours of junior doctors. The Council and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs are aiming for 48 hours over a four-month reference period. This is the goal we would like to achieve. The Council, however, has accepted a transitional period of 13 years, I repeat 13 years!
According to the European Parliament, this is far too long and it proposes a four-year transitional period. This is more than adequate. A transitional period of 13 years cannot be justified from the point of view of health and safety. There have been enough accidents in hospitals involving junior doctors to render the Council’s proposal unjustified. So we are in favour of a limited transitional period.
Amendment No 6 relates to the reference period for calculating weekly working hours in the off-shore sector. The Council authorises the Member States to extend the reference period of four months to twelve months. The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs is in agreement, provided that the two sides of industry involved enter into consultation and negotiation with each other, although this consultation does not have to lead to any agreement.
Amendment No 7 provides for seafarers on board sea-fishing vessels to work an average of 48 hours per week over a 12-month reference period. This is comparable to that provided by a collective agreement for seafarers. The time which the Council gives the Member States and hence itself to transpose the directive amending the existing working time directive is, according to the common Council position, four years. This is a huge exaggeration, Commissioner. It is even the case that only three years were allowed for the transposition of the original directive, which was a great deal more detailed in those days. A transitional period of four years is suggested here. We would like to restrict this to two years.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, working hours are often a matter of give and take, with some flexibility around the edges. But sometimes it is also a matter of life and death. To conclude, for the millions of transport operators, seafarers, junior doctors, for the patients, the passengers and other road users, it is absolutely essential that a sound agreement is reached swiftly.
The other report concerns the organisation of working hours. If you, Mr President, were to have a heart attack any time now, which of course I do not wish upon you, then I hope you will be treated and cared for by a junior doctor who has benefited from sound training and a good night’s sleep, because in a number of EU Member States this is by no means certain. It could well be that this doctor has been on duty for 70 hours over the past five days or has carried out medical and even surgical operations for the past 14 hours without a break. It could also be that this doctor does not have enough experience in order to carry out this type of work but will do so anyway out of necessity without the supervision of a competent senior.
Mr President, when you – in good health, I hope – make your way home by car immediately after this session, then you will still not be safe. You will be sharing the roads with other vehicles and especially transport operators, including truck drivers. They should only drive for 10 hours a day but they also carry out other duties apart from driving, such as cleaning or maintenance. These working hours are not regulated in a number of EU Member States. So on the way home, you may well have to face a transport operator who has only been driving for 10 hours that day but has spent 5 hours loading and unloading on top of this.
Consequently, it is important in terms of both public health and road safety that junior doctors and truck drivers respectively are given reasonable breaks and working hours. Moreover, working hours form part of health and safety at work and of competition rules, both of which fall within the scope of the European Union.
Despite this, the entire transport sector, activities at sea and junior doctors are excluded from the scope of the working time directive of 1993. In order to nullify this inadequate exemption rule, the Commission drafted a White Paper in 1997 and made an announcement in 1998 which included a draft directive reviewing the working time directive. The European Parliament pronounced its opinion as early as the first reading and the Council has since established a common position. Meanwhile, the institutional context has changed and we are now involved in a co-decision procedure with the European Council.
In the capacity of rapporteur, I have sought a balance, not only between the Commission’s draft directive, the first reading of the European Parliament and the Council’s common position, but especially between the safety and health of both workers and the other parties involved.
So the issue is restricting working hours to benefit the safety and health of employees at work, especially in the various transport sectors, for activities at sea and in the case of junior doctors. The Council is right in distinguishing between mobile and non-mobile workers. The Social Affairs Committee has adopted this distinction but not the definition issued by the Council. According to the Council, mobile workers also include own-account transport operators and transport operators who work outside the transport sector, such as those involved in the transportation of concrete in the timber and construction sectors, for example. The Committee on Employment and Social Affairs of our Parliament has rejected this definition, partly because these workers would then be partially excluded from the scope of the existing working time directive. They presently come under its scope and no problems have materialised so far. I therefore wonder why the Council is so keen to introduce a change, hence an amendment.
Not included in the description of mobile workers are rail transport workers. There has been a European collective agreement in place since 1998 which advocates the wholesale inclusion of rail transport in the existing working time directive, barring a few exemptions. This has been the case but this collective agreement also states that a solution needs to be found, not only for rail but also for road transport and other methods of transport for which there is, as yet, no solution. I would remind the Commission that it has also promised to issue separate proposals for the air-transport sector and internal shipping. Nothing has been tabled so far. As far as road transport is concerned, as already stated by Mr Hughes, no agreement appears to have been reached within the Council, which I regret.
At any rate, all mobile workers in the transport sectors are guided by four basic principles which are embodied in the common position on the draft directive and which, in fact, also apply to seafarers and junior doctors; namely four weeks’ annual paid leave, restricted annual working hours, appropriate breaks and medical examination in the case of night work. This applies without any restrictions to all workers in the transport sector. In addition, provisions need to be drafted for each sector with regard to daily breaks, weekly breaks, other breaks and night shifts. This has been regulated in the railway sector and this is being regulated here for seafarers and junior doctors."@en1
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