The Council of the European Union has announced that it has reached agreement in principle on proposals for further legislation in several key areas of employment law, including temporary workers and the 48-hour working week. The Council has issued a press release outlining the agreement reached at a meeting on 9 June 2008, which also dealt with action to be taken in relation to posted workers, and the elimination of gender stereotyping in the labour market.

On the working time issue, the Council has reached agreement on a compromise text that provides for the possibility of retaining the opt-out from the 48-hour maximum working week. According to a separate press release from the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), this agreement ensures UK workers’ right to work overtime taking them beyond 48 hours per week can continue. However, the compromise text requires that the opt-out be ‘accompanied by a number of conditions in order to guarantee the protection of health and safety of workers’. Thus, while the UK Government has avoided the amendments proposed by the European Parliament that would have removed the opt-out altogether, it may well have to implement further protective measures if the opt-out’s long-term survival is to be assured.

The Council has, however, reached a common position on the draft Directive on agency work. The agreement comes on the back of the recently agreed deal between the Government, the TUC and the CBI to give temporary workers the right to equal treatment with their permanent counterparts after 12 weeks.

Click here for the Council's press release.

Click here for the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform's press release.

© Incomes Data Services Ltd, 2008