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		EU calls time on Lincolnshire jobs Lincolnshire Echo - February 9 2004 Changes being made to the EU's Working Time Directive (WTD) will have a serious impact on employment and competitiveness in Lincolnshire. And although the measures are supposed to promote health and safety, they may well have exactly the opposite effect. The WTD was introduced in 1993, and it limits the maximum working week to 48 hours. However the impact was softened by the exclusion of key categories of workers: "mobile workers" -- lorry, van and bus drivers -- and health and hospitality workers. And there was also an "opt-out" provision, allowing individual workers voluntarily to opt-out of the measure and work longer if they wanted. The EU has already decided to extend the WTD to all workers by May next year. And there are moves in the parliament to end the opt-out entirely. My stepson is a truck-driver. He makes a decent living as a trucker, and typically works around sixty hours a week. If he is limited to 48 hours, he may have trouble paying the mortgage. To compensate, there will be upward pressure on hourly wage rates, reducing the competitiveness of industry generally. But it's worse than that. According the Road Haulage Association, Britain is already short of truckers. If we reduce average hours by 20%, we will need 25% more truckers just to maintain current capacity. And that's without even considering the inefficiencies created as established routes have to be fitted into a shorter working week. According to a delegate at a recent seminar on the WTD in Corby, Northants, employers will be forced to hire foreign truckers from Eastern Europe, either from the current EU "Accession States" (joining the EU in May), or from further afield. These truckers may well be less well-trained than British drivers, and will probably be unfamiliar with British roads. So as a result of this "Health and Safety" measure, our roads look set to become more dangerous. The WTD changes will also cause havoc in the NHS, as doctors' hours are reduced. Doctors take many years to train, and are already in short supply. The BMA is concerned that the NHS might simply collapse under the impact of the WTD rules. One of the speakers at the Corby seminar was Richard Arnold, an employment law specialist from local law firm William Browne. He remarked "There is a pleasant irony here -- and we lawyers like irony. A measure intended to protect health and safety will have the effect of making the National Health Services of most member states inoperable". The impact of ending of opt-out will also be dire. Some 4 million British workers currently enjoy opt-out status (though not all work long hours). The EU loves to talk about its "Lisbon process", about making the EU "the world's most competitive knowledge-based economy by 2010". Yet measure after measure reduces labour market flexibility, and damages competitiveness and job prospects. Proponents of the proposal talk about "work/life balance", and complain that Britain has a "long-hours culture". But this is nonsense. The truth is that the continent has a short-hours culture. The French have a 35-hour week -- and massive unemployment. So compared to the continent, we may well work longer hours. But we live in a global economy, and compared to the USA, China or Japan, we have a short-hours culture. When I was MD of a business in Korea (1990/94), we worked six ten-hour days. These are the countries we have to compete with, and we can't do so with our arms tied behind our backs. The EU's so-called "Charter of Fundamental Rights" includes a right to work. Yet here they are limiting the right of EU citizens to work. There is a bitter irony here. Most of the MEPs I know, and all the Conservative MEPs, work massively longer hours than 48 a week. Yet Labour and Lib-Dem MEPs are prepared to vote away the rights of other people to work the hours we work. The extension of the WTD to drivers and health and hospitality workers is a done deal. But we will continue to fight to save the British opt-out. It is critical to maintain growth and prosperity in our country. And our right to work should not be compromised.