SMEs' competitiveness reduced with opt-out

Malta's Employer organisations, in a joint statement on the EU's Working Time Directive, said yesterday that it was inconceivable for small, medium and large businesses in Malta to remain competitive if work places are restricted to a 48-hour week as a statutory imposition.

"The European Commission, the Parliament and the Council of Ministers should give due weight to the opinions of leaders of enterprises in Europe if they seriously believe in the Lisbon Agenda and really want the European and the Maltese economy to prosper in the coming years," the organisations said.

The European Parliament earlier this month voted to scrap opt-outs from the directive, restricting the working week, with overtime, to a maximum of 48 hours a week. The amendments still have to be approved by the other EU institutions.

The Malta Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Industry, the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, the GRTU and the Malta Employers' Association underlined the views being made by employers in the EU.

They said the proposals, being made in the EU with Commission backing, said that the directive should "improve the working environment to protect the worker's health and safety" while it "must avoid imposing administrative, financial and legal constraints in such a way as to hold back the creation and development of small and medium sized undertakings".

Employers are also insisting that the directive should give a high level of protection to workers' health and safety, while allowing companies flexibility in managing working time, allow greater compatibility between work and family life; and avoid any imposition of unreasonable constraints on companies, in particular SMEs.

With reference to on-call time, the employers' view was that several member states had national legislation and practices which contained rules on time spent "on call" in various sectors and especially in the health sector. These rules varied in different ways, but it was common in all cases that on-call time did not count as working time, or it did so only partly.

"The inactive part of on-call time should not be regarded as working time. This is crucial for the functioning of all enterprises, especially SMEs and for the further development of the social economy."

Furthermore, European employers acknowledged that on-call time should not be considered as resting time as this would lead to excessively long working hours, which could hamper the reconciliation of work and family life and endanger the health and safety of workers.

However, they said that they would consider if necessary that the inactive part of on-call time could be established as an average number of hours, in order to take into account the different needs in the various sectors and enterprises.

The employers said the possibility of the 'opt-out' from the directive should be maintained and the collective opt-out should be put on equal footing with the individual opt-out.

This was important to take into account the different practices on industrial relations across the enlarged EU as well as the needs of enterprises, and the needs and wishes of workers who might wish to work longer in different periods of their lives.

Nevertheless, it has to be assured that this possibility remained voluntary, was not used in an abusive way and that the worker could withdraw his consent to work longer when his circumstances changed.