Labour and Social Affairs Council (Hansard, 13 May 1992)

The Council held its second full discussion of the draft directive on the organisation of working time.

I emphasised the very damaging effects of the proposal on competitiveness, costs and take-home pay. Significant progress was made. The Council did not take a vote; there was general agreement that it was for each member state to decide whether to designate Sunday as a standard day of rest; and there was substantial support for the view that it should be possible to derogate from the directive through collective agreements in a way appropriate to the local and decentralised bargaining arrangements that apply in the United Kingdom.

On the 48-hour maximum working week, I again set out the severe difficulties which would flow from the present text. I made it clear that the Government were prepared to see reference to 48 hours in the text of the directive only if solutions were found to the United Kingdom's major problems with the proposal.

The Portuguese President of the Council said that the working time directive would also be on the agenda of the next scheduled Labour and Social Affairs Council on 24 June.

A number of other proposals were agreed. The Council unanimously agreed a health and safety directive relevant to extractive industries, and also a directive to update the existing 1975 directive on collective redundancies. Two measures were adopted which will assist freedom of movement for workers within the Community: amendments were approved to regulations on social security for migrant workers and to the SEDOC system of notifying vacancies throughout the Community. Amendments were also agreed to the laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the classification, packaging and labelling of dangerous substances.

Following this meeting of the Council, of the 38 proposals put forward so far under the EC social action programme, 21 have already been agreed by the Council or, where appropriate, the Commission.