New working time limits

[Orbital]

What the title says, now set to 48 hours:

"Labour MEPs were among those voting to axe the opt-out from the directive which seeks to limit the working week to a maximum of 48 hours."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7711415.stm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Coldrop]

Does this apply to emergency services ?

if it does, I can't wait to read the headline about the firemen letting an occupied buiding burn down because they were forced to stop working because they'd hit their weekly maximum hours

I recently read a news article where a paramedic refused to finish his T break early and help a dying man. I think he had it in writing that his union stated he must have his break

[Orbital]

Good point, kinda scary if it does apply to Emergency services , hopefully there are exceptions to the rules! Also strange how the government wanted doctors to do even more hours not so long ago too

[HelenPJ]

Hi
I think you will find that some categories of workers will still be excluded under the new terms of the legislation (as they are under the old)
You may find this interesting (November 2006, the last time this was debated and failed at the EU):
http://www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-12616 ... sabouttime" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The TUC's analysis of unpublished findings from the Government's Labour Force Survey, published today showed that removing the opt-out would have had little economic effect:

Only 800,000 to 1 million UK employees would have had to make a serious change to their working patterns if the opt-out was ended, but many of these work excessively long hours with at least 130,000 regularly putting in more than 60 hours a week.
The number of UK employees working more than 48 hours has declined by 17.5 per cent since the 1998 peak of 4.0 million, 700,000 fewer employees are now working long hours.
The incidence of long hours workers has declined in every industry, occupation and region, although the pattern of improvement is very uneven, with some sectors doing much better than others.
Because of the growth of some jobs and industries there are more long hours workers in some of them, but even here the proportion doing long hours has fallen.
Starting from a higher baseline, the decline of long hours working has been much sharper in the private sector.
A third of UK employees who work more than 48 hours per week are only working one or two extra hours per week.
Under the deal that failed today up to a million UK employees would have continued to be exempt from the 48-hour limit. These are mostly 'autonomous workers' - largely senior managers and professionals who genuinely control their own hours.
The deal also included increasing the period for averaging the 48-hour limit from 17 weeks to 52 weeks. This would have excluded about 1.5 million UK long hours workers from the coverage of the 48-hour week, since they do not sustain their excessive working time over the full year.

This year's full Press Release from Brendan Barber of the TUC
http://www.tuc.org.uk/work_life/tuc-15566-f0.cfm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; includes:

'Our long hours culture, which has been shored up by the opt-out, has risked the health of many workers. Regularly working more than 48 hours increases the chance of suffering from heart disease and stress related illness, as well as diabetes and other ailments.
'The vast majority of long hours workers want to move to a better work-life balance and are hungry for change. Today's vote is a welcome step towards ending the opt-out and the pressure will now be on the European Parliament to ratify the decision next month.'

The current legislation and guidance is here:
http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employm ... index.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The basic rights and protections that the Regulations provide are:

a limit of an average of 48 hours a week which a worker can be required to work (though workers can choose to work more if they want to).
a limit of an average of 8 hours work in 24 which nightworkers can be required to work.
a right for night workers to receive free health assessments.
a right to 11 hours rest a day.
a right to a day off each week.
a right to an in-work rest break if the working day is longer than 6 hours.
a right to 4 weeks paid leave per year.

As the limit is an average over a period of weeks (normally 17 weeks) then working 48 hours and 5 minutes (or 60 hours for that matter) for one week does not break the Working Time Regulations... so this should not be a problem unless it happens All The Time

Fuller Guidance here:
http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employm ... 28978.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The number of hours worked each week should be averaged out over 17 weeks or however long a worker has been working for their employer if this is less than 17 weeks. This period of time is called the ‘reference period’.

Workers and employers can agree to calculate the average weekly working time over a period of up to 52 weeks under a workforce or collective agreement. The reference period is also extended to 26 weeks in other circumstances - see Section 8.

Doctors in training have a 26-week reference period
The offshore sector has a 52-week reference period
The average weekly working time is calculated by dividing the number of hours worked by the number of weeks over which the average working week is being calculated, for example 17.

When calculating the average weekly working time, if the worker is away during the reference period because he or she is taking paid annual leave, maternity, paternity, adoption or parental leave, or is off sick you will need to make up for this time in your calculation. Do this by adding the hours worked during the days which immediately followed the 17-week period – use the same number of days as those when work was missed.

with some Worked Examples...
and here, Section 5 and especially Section 8 expand on the above:
http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/employm ... 28979.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Special circumstances
The night work limits (including the limit for special hazards), rights to rest periods and rest breaks do not apply where:

A worker works far away from where he or she lives (this includes offshore work). Or he or she constantly has to work in different places making it difficult to work to a set pattern.
The work involves security or surveillance to protect property or individuals.
The job requires round-the-clock staffing as in hospitals, residential institutions, prisons, media production companies, public utilities, and in the case of workers concerned with the carriage of passengers on regular urban transport services or in industries where work cannot be interrupted on technical grounds.
There are busy peak periods, such as may apply seasonally in agriculture, retail, tourism and postal services.
An emergency occurs or something unusual and unforeseen happens.

Where the worker works in rail transport and his activities are intermittent; he spends his time working on board trains; or his activities are linked to transport timetables and to ensuring the continuity and regularity of traffic.
In these cases, (except for the offshore sector) the reference period for the weekly working time limit is extended from 17 to 26 weeks. In addition workers are entitled to "compensatory rest".

and

SECTION 10: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Can my employer make me sign an opt-out agreement?

No. Any opt-out must be agreed to. You cannot be fairly dismissed or subject to a detriment if you refuse to sign it.

What should an employer do about a worker with a second job?

If a worker is known to have a second job, an employer should ask the worker to consider signing an opt-out agreement if the total time worked is in excess of 48 hours a week. If a worker does not wish to sign an opt-out in this situation, the worker should consider reducing their hours to comply with the 48-hour limit.

More generally, employers may wish to make an enquiry of their workforce about any additional employment. However, if a worker does not tell an employer about other employment and the employer has no reason to suspect that the worker has another job, it is extremely unlikely that the employer would be found not to have complied.

Regularly working Long Hours (and the key word is Regularly) has been indicated as a significant cause of deleterious and long-term ill-health effects. Intermittently working long hours for a "short" period of time to cover e.g. production requirements does not appear to have the same effects and so is not legislated against.

One of my friends, in his early 30s, after continuously working about 60 hour a week over a period of about 2 years, suffered a heart attack resulting in a critical stay in Intensive Care, and still has ciruclatory problems etc (but now works "standard" hours). And one of my previous employers, who certainly actively encouraged (ahem) a long-hours culture (before the WTR were dreamt of) was known as the "Killing Fields" at the local Casualty Department due to the (depressingly frequent) number of heart attacks and strokes which occurred at work

While it is illegal for Employers to make the signing of the "opt-out" mandatory, in practice there can be great pressure to do so, in order to keep a job, or through apparent peer pressure. Removal of the "opt-out" may therefore be of benefit to several individuals who felt they had no other choice (in reality) but to sign, and thus offers them protection currently lacking. And perhaps induce some Employers to review their working practices as a whole...

IMO the prospective changes could be summed up as:
PROs: 1. Greater protection against Regular Long-Hour Working by scrapping the signed "Opt-Out" provisions to protect the long-term health of the working population, reducing the overall costs to society and the (taxpayer-funded) NHS
CONs: 1. Some Employers will have to review their staffing levels, methods of working and scheduling
2. Potential difficulties faced by individuals who need to have several (often low-paid) jobs to make ends meet.

WTR only apply to Employers, Employees and Workers. The Self-Employed or other "Autonomous Workers" fall outwith the regulations anyway, and certain Sectors will no doubt keep their Excepted status, which they currently have.

bit of moment, but hope this helps show, as with all things (especially H&S related), the News Report only skims the surface of what is really happening. I strongly suspect the same may be true, on further investigation, of the news article Coldrop mentions about the paramedic incident (such as why was the blame put one paramedic and not on the probable short staffing of the ambulance service - or whatever) Oops again

As the HSE are one of the enforcing agencies for the WTR, my bias is to agree with this statement from the original BBC report linked by Orbital...

Labour MEP Stephen Hughes, a member of the committee and spokesman for the European Parliament's Socialist group, told the BBC earlier it was "wrong in principle" to opt-out of what he described as a "health and safety law".

Apart from the qualification of "what he described"

[Coldrop]

So.

the checkout girl serving me in a shop can't work more than 48 hours

but

the doctor whose gunna be dealing with me after my heart attack and keeping me alive is gunna be stressed, tired, not operating at full capacity beacuase he's 4/5th the way through his 90 hour week

I'd rather have the doctor at the top of his game and in full physical and mental health when dealing with me. The checkout girl is only gunna cock up my change if shes tired/stressed

I hope I go quick rather than be another statistic on medical negligence report

[superscaff75]

coldrop if your doctor read helens reply he be laid nxt to you in ward strewth helen that was defo some soapbox moment i started reading it on satday an just finished it now sunday

[futchereagle]

What i cant understand is why people in the emergancy,security and many other industries have the same tax rate as
people earning better saleries for less hours work.People working 60 hours or more per week due to the nature of their work
are being shafted by the tax man.This must be unfair.We would all love a 35-48 hour a week job but circumstances dont allow
it.The majority of people working over 48 hours are not recieving any bonuses so their life is their work,they have little or no
rest and recreation,or family life.Something has to be done about this.
48 hour week thats a laugh,if the government had its way we would all be working 70 hour a week.

Im angry angry angry.

[HelenPJ]

Superscaff (and others)
Won't say anymore or I'll be back on