Social partners call for self-employed drivers to be covered by working time rules

In summer 2001, employers and trade unions in the Portuguese road transport sector called for the inclusion of self-employed lorry drivers in the scope of EU rules on working time. Employers believe that the exclusion of self-employed drivers distorts competition between larger firms - which employ drivers as employees - and small self-employed operators. Unions fear that drivers will be encouraged to become self-employed.

The 1993 EU Directive (93/104/EC) on certain aspects of the organisation of working time excluded a number of sectors and activities from its scope, including road transport. A Directive (2000/34/EC) extending the original working time Directive to previously excluded sectors and activities was adopted in June 2000 (EU0005249F). This provided some protection for mobile workers in road transport, but excluded them from the Directive's provisions on daily rest, rest breaks, weekly rest and length of night work.

A specific draft Directive on working time for mobile workers in road transport, providing fuller protection, has been proceeding slowly through the EU legislative machinery since 1999 (EU0010271N) and has been the subject of considerable dispute, mainly over the issue of the inclusion of self-employed drivers in the Directive's scope. The Council of Ministers reached a common position on the Directive in March 2001 (following political agreement in December 2000 - EU0101290N), which excluded self-employed drivers temporarily – the European Commission would, two years after the implementation of the proposal, review this exclusion and its effects. In June 2001, the European Parliament gave the draft Directive a second reading (under the co-decision procedure) and called for self-employed drivers to be covered after three years, without any further assessment (EU0107224N).

In summer 2001, the Portuguese National Association of Public Highway Goods Transporters (Associação Nacional dos Transportadores Públicos Rodoviários de Mercadorias, ANTRAM), representing the sector's employers, challenged the exclusion of self-employed lorry drivers from the current EU Directive and the proposed new Directive. For ANTRAM, the fact that only company employees are covered, and not self-employed drivers, means that the latter will not include periods of waiting, loading and unloading, maintenance or administrative work in their working hours. They will thus be penalised in terms of the quality of their working life (rest periods and safety) in relation to their company-employed counterparts, and may end up working a 65-hour week instead of a 48-hour week. This will results in the services of self-employed drivers being cheaper to use. ANTRAM believes that large companies will be heavily penalised because they use company-employed drivers and not self-employed individuals.

The exclusion of self-employed drivers from the working time rules will increase competition between very small companies and larger ones. According to ANTRAM, this will have serious consequences, such as a reduction in the safety and quality of vehicle fleets, an increase in heavy goods vehicle traffic, greater consumption of fuel and, as a result, greater damage to the environment. Portugal is an outlying European country and the transport of goods to and from the country across the continent implies long-distance travel. Therefore, the length of working hours is a significant factor in terms of costs. In Portugal, the number of self-employed drivers is very high.

ANTRAM has made submissions to the European Parliament about the difficulties raised by the draft Directive, claiming that it directly penalises the larger road transport operators, which will have to bear the costs of competing with self-employed drivers. ANTRAM also intends to put pressure on the Portuguese government with a view to challenging the Directive.

The inclusion or non-inclusion of self-employed drivers in terms in the scope of the EU working time rules is also a cause for concern among Portuguese trade unions. The Federation of Highway and Urban Trade Unions (Federação dos Sindicatos Rodoviários e Urbanos, FESTRU) supports ANTRAM's position and will take part in the International Day of Action for improved conditions for road transport workers, called by the International Transport Worker's Federation on 15 October 2001. FESTRU objects to a system that encourages individuals to become self-employed and suffer the poor working conditions that this status entails.