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• t shift concession set to ease ED in 'next week'

13th December 2001
Page 6
Page 6, 13th December 2001 — • t shift concession set to ease ED in 'next week'
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• by Dominic Perry The European Parliament has given the clearest indication yet that twill back down over controversial proposals to limit nighttime working to eight hours.

MEP Stephen Hughes, the "rapporteur" for the directive, says the parliament will ease up on proposed restrictions in a bid to push the controversial directive through the final stages of conciliation.

In return, it hopes that the European Commission will relax its stance over the inclusion of self-employed drivers in the directive. If the EC makes these concessions the directive could be rubberstamped as early as next week.

The news leaked after Hughes responded to a letter from Frank Hurter, chairman of the Freight Transport Association's North Eastern regional council, expressing concern over the proposals.

Hughes says the European Parliament is willing to accept a maxtmum average of 10 hours' night work and to define the "core period" of night work as 00:00-04:00hrs.

It had originally been pressing for an eight-hour maximum and a core period between 22:00-06:00hrs—which would have thrown the UK's distribution network into chaos. Firms would have been forced to recruit more drivers and move regional depots to allow for shorter journey times.

However, Hughes says: "It was always my intention as rapporteur to use the night working issue as a negotiating lever. I recognise the importance of 10 hours to the UK distribution network and it was always my view that we would settle for that. But we wanted to extract the inclusion of the selfemployed from the Commission."

He adds that owner-drivers will "definitely" be included in the directive, but as yet no date has been decided and an exact definition is still to be fixed.

'We don't want to see a weak definition of what constitutes self-employed as that would open up the danger of a grey area developing where new definitions of selfemployed are exploited by unscrupulous operators," he warns.

Geoff Dossetter, head of external affairs at the Freight Transport Association, welcomes the move: "Bearing in mind the distribution patterns in the UK and the current manpower shortage it's a key aspect for UK operators—it's excellent news."

Bert Proctor, head of employee relations at parcels giant TNT, has lobbied Parliament along with TNT drivers over tt directive. He says: 'We are delighted th they have agreed to back down on this or to extend it from eight to 10 hours."

Under the rules of the directive drivel could still work 12-hour night shifts, as !or as the weekly average is 10 hours. If mile tive agreements are made, the "referent period" which is used to calculate ft weekly average, could be extended up to months to increase driver flexibility.


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