The Working Time Directive By Krishen Patten P5 The European Working Time Directive was implemented in the working

time regulations in 1998 for the United Kingdom; it was a regulation to prevent people overworking, which could lead to detrimental health effects but also a lack of performance within their profession. It was amended in 2003 to include The regulations state that (1) Subject to regulation 5, a workers working time, including overtime, in any reference period which is applicable in his case shall not exceed an average of 48 hours for each seven days a limit to weekly working time, which must not exceed 48 hours on average, including any overtime a minimum daily rest period, of 11 consecutive hours in every 24 a rest break during working time, if the worker is on duty for longer than six hours a minimum weekly rest period of 24 uninterrupted hours for each seven-day period, which is added to the 11 hours' daily rest paid annual leave, of at least four weeks per year extra protection in the case of night work (for example, average working hours must not exceed 8 hours per 24-hour period; night workers must not perform heavy or dangerous work for longer than 8 hours in any 24-hour period; there should be a right to free health assessments and in certain situations, to transfer to day work).

What counts as work? As well as carrying out your normal duties, your working week includes:

job-related training job-related travelling time, for example, if you are a sales rep working lunches, for example business lunches time spent working abroad, if you work for a UK-based company paid and some unpaid overtime time spent 'on-call' at the workplace

Working two different jobs If you work two jobs you could either:

consider signing an opt-out agreement with your employers if your total time worked is over 48 hours or reduce your hours to meet the 48-hour limit

Who does it affect? The reason why the directive was put in place was in order to control the hours of work in which people are allowed to work within the week ensuring that there is 24 hours of uninterrupted rest , therefore ensuring that workers are treated fairly ( in terms of hours a week ) not over working

them. This European Union directive was set in place by governments to ensure best productivity from workers in firms, which would benefit the economy and firms productive efficiency. How does it affect firms and the economy? The amended European means that there is a restriction on the number of hours that an employer can employ its workers , therefore meaning it cannot push existing employees to work harder on the same salary or same wage rate , therefore it means that firms will have to employ more staff in order to carry on the work load . The effects of this are that productivity could increase because regular shifts which are flexible (therefore productivity can increase). However it means that costs of wages/salaries can increase meaning business costs go up making it harder for the firm to meet its costs with profits.