Flexible working law could be thrown into disarray if the Working Time Directive goes through the European Council in its current state on Monday, according to an expert.

The right to request flexible working could be extended to every employee under a new provision in the EU directive concerning the reconciliation of working family life.

Just last month, the UK government extended the right to request to parents of children aged 16 and under, following a review commissioned by the government.

But David Yeandle, deputy director of employment research at manufacturers' body the EEF, warned that the EU directive in its current state could supersede this.

He told Personnel Today: "There is a new provision coming into the EU Working Time Directive, which was hardly there before, to do with the reconciliation of working family life. Effectively, it could be read as extending the right to request to everybody, and making it more difficult for employers to be able to reject the request purely on the basis of business reasons."

I also do not agree with the UK having the opt out, for reasons you put forward, that so many employees do not realise that they have the right to stick with the limit on the hours they work. Bullying bosses, witholding information are not going to allow employees their rights. The quote above shows how business thinks that business interestes should come above those of the workforce or individuals.  

TUC press release

People working over 48 hours a week increases to 3.3 million

An extra 180,000 people across the UK are working more than 48 hours a week in 2008, according to a TUC analysis of official statistics released today (Friday 9th June).

The analysis, included in the new TUC report - The Return of the Long Hours Culture - has found that the number of people working long hours has increased at a faster rate over the last year than the decline in excessive working between 1998 and 2006.

In the first quarter of 2008, the total number of people working long hours increased by 0.5 percentage points (180,000 people) to 3.3 million. The sharpest increases in long hours working occurred in the East of England (up 2.1 percentage points) and London (up 2 percentage points). Between 1998 and 2006, the number of people working more than 48 hours was reduced by 3.7 percentage points (707,000) from 3.8 million to 3.1 million.

The TUC report argues that the recent increase in the number of people working long hours is due to the challenging economic climate, which has made employers more reluctant to recruit new staff and instead work existing employees harder.

The analysis also finds that 85 per cent of new long hours workers are male. The TUC believes that this trend, in which senior jobs are increasingly reliant on long hours, could hamper efforts to close the pay gap, as women with childcare responsibilities are likely to be excluded from these roles.

In order to reverse the growth of long hours working, the TUC is calling for a stronger the Working Time Directive (WTD) to protect employers. Since its implementation in 1998, the WTD has helped to reduce excessive long hours, although the UK's opt-out has meant that this progress, in the TUC's view, has been too slow.

Yet if everyone had the same level of rights to flexible working and not to work more than 48 hours, then employers would adapt and it would be easier to root out the unscrupulous ones who break the law and cause losses for the law abiding businesses.

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