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HOURS NOT TO REASON WHY...
here's an old line that running your own business is easy—you can do any 12 hours a day you like. But now this joke has had its day. Hauliers already facing uncertain futures will take no comfort from the EC decision that road-transport employees will be included in the 48-hour working week. And unlike most UK workers, they won't be allowed to sign away their right to the shorter week. This may be welcome news to hard-pressed drivers, but the additional employment costs for firms currently asking for more than 48 hours from employees will be enough to send many to the wall. The new regime will be particularly restrictive for owner-drivers, who will be the only self-employed workers in Europe to be governed by a 48-hour week. The consolation, says EC Transport Commissioner Neil Kinnock, is that road safety should be enhanced. A laudable and important consideration, of course—but as for the suggestion that the move will create a level playing field, there is, sadly, a very long way to go before this becomes the case. It would be nice to see some of the other bumps in the field being levelled out; not least the right for UK hauliers to run at 44 tonnes and to pay the same for diesel as most of our European neighbours. But at least it's true that all
European hauliers are in the same boat on working time. In fact some are even worse off than us: in France, for example, implementation of the Working Time Directive includes a plan to reduce standard hours to 35 a week and to call any time beyond this overtime, up to the 48-hour maximum. There but for the grace of God and Govern me nt...