Three years after the revised working time directive took effect, MEPs want to scrap the right of individual workers to opt out of the maximum 48 hour working week. They also want on-call time to count as working time in most cases. Parliament's Employment Committee took these decisions when it adopted a report on 19 April by Alejandro CERCAS (PES, ES) by 31 votes to 14, with 1 abstention.

The committee thus disagrees with the proposal put forward by the European Commission, which would keep the individual opt-out while tightening up the conditions for its application. Again in contrast to the Commission, MEPs want the entire period of any time spent on-call, including the "inactive part", to be regarded as working time. But the committee decided that Member States could allow inactive parts of on-call time to be calculated in special ways in order to comply with the maximum weekly average working time.

In further amendments to the Commission's text, MEPs decided that working hours should be organised in such a way as to give employees the opportunity for life-long learning. They also want to achieve the right balance between reconciling work and family life and the need for more flexible organisation of working time. And they want to make it clear that workers who have more than one employment contract are covered by the directive, so another amendment spells out that an individual's working time must be calculated as the sum of the periods under each of the contracts.

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