Unions challenge the UK's long hours culture

In a new report, published in February 2002, the Trades Union Congress highlighted the long working hours of millions of UK employees and called for an end to the provision in the EU working time Directive enabling individual employees to 'opt out' of the 48-hour limit on average weekly working hours.

Under the EU working time Directive (93/104/EC), Member States may allow workers to exceed the Directive's 48-hour limit on average weekly working hours, provided that employers first obtain the agreement of individual workers to do so. The UK is the only Member State to have made use of this provision. Before the seventh anniversary of the Directive's implementation date, ie by November 2003, the European Commission is required to prepare a report reviewing the 'individual opt-out' exemption and make proposals to the Council of Ministers, which must decide on what action to take.

Ahead of this review, in February 2002 the UK's Trades Union Congress (TUC) published a report highlighting the UK's 'long hours culture' and urging the government not to argue for an extension of the Directive's individual opt-out provisions beyond November 2003. Publication of the report coincided with a major TUC conference on 5 February 2002 intended to 'launch a national debate on working time policy'. Speakers at the conference included trade and industry secretary Patricia Hewitt and John Cridland, deputy director-general of the CBI employers' organisation, as well as TUC general secretary John Monks.

Main points of the report

Drawing on data from the UK's Labour Force Survey (LFS) and a TUC-commissioned opinion poll, the TUC report argues that, in spite of the implementation of the EU working time Directive and a range of government initiatives to promote flexibility, 'millions of UK employees are still working very long hours and ... flexible working time arrangements are non-existent in too many workplaces.'

The report quotes LFS statistics showing that nearly 4 million employees (16% of the total) are now working over 48 hours per week, compared with 3.3 million (15%) in the early 1990s. The great majority of these are men (nearly 3.2 million). The number and proportion of male employees working in excess of 48 hours peaked in 1998 when the UK's Working Time Regulations (WTR) were introduced (UK9810154F), though the number of women working over 48 hours continued to rise despite a slight decline in proportional terms. The TUC comments that the impact of the WTR has not only been 'small scale', but also 'one-off' in that there has been little or no reduction in the numbers of employees working over 48 hours per week in the past three years.

Managerial and professional employees are the most likely to be working long hours. Long hours are also prevalent amongst skilled trades and other manual workers ('operatives') in the manufacturing, construction and transport sectors.

The report cites various studies which have found the extensive use of 'individual opt-outs' from the 48-hour limit by UK companies, including a CBI survey in 2001 which suggested that 47% of companies have used opt-outs for some groups of workers, rising to 71% in the case of larger companies with between 500 and 5,000 employees (UK0107139N).

As regards access to flexible working time arrangements, 42% of full-time employees told the TUC's opinion poll that they had no flexibility at all to vary their stated working hours. LFS data show that 10.3 million employees (42%) say that they would like to work shorter hours and 2.5 million (10%) would be willing to take a pay cut to do so.

The report also highlights 'a striking polarisation in working time patterns in the UK labour market': while many employees would like to reduce their time at work, LFS data shows over 2 million employees say they want (or need) more paid working hours.

Views of the key players

In his speech to the conference, John Monks said that the use of the individual opt-out had 'postponed the day when the excessive working hours problem will be addressed'. He said that 'regulation is essential to fairness. Employers, left to their own devices, will allow the inflexible, excessive hours culture to continue. They will dictate the number of hours people work.' He also argued that cutting working hours was essential to boosting productivity in the UK (UK0111104N): 'High productivity depends on staff being at work and 'raring to go' rather than fatigued or absent through sickness or injury. The truth is that the longer you work the less you produce.'

The CBI is pressing the government to resist pressure for the individual opt-out to be abandoned. Responding to the TUC report, the CBI's John Cridland argued that reducing long hours should be a matter of 'individual choice'. He said: 'The working time Directive gives people the right to say 'no' to working extra hours. But having the existing individual opt-out from the 48-hour limit also gives people the right to say 'yes'. The CBI will vigorously defend that right.'

Patricia Hewitt, the trade and industry secretary, told the conference that the government wanted people to have far greater choice about their working hours. She outlined the steps taken by the Labour government on working time issues, including the implementation of the working time Directive and a range of statutory provisions to promote 'family-friendly' working patterns, the latest of which is the right for working parents to request flexible working hours (UK0112105N), incorporated in the Employment Bill currently going through parliament (UK0112104N). The minister also emphasised that cultural change was necessary as well as legislative change. She called for renewed efforts by employers and unions to 'attack the long hours culture and promote flexibility' and identified a number of initiatives designed to support innovative working time reform and spread best practice.

Commentary

The research findings highlighted in the TUC's report are generally consistent with research for the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) published in 2001 (UK0105133F). This suggested that the effect of the WTR on most UK organisations was limited and that long hours continued to be worked consistently by a significant minority of employees, facilitated by exemptions from the legislation and the use of employee opt-outs.

It is widely expected that the European Commission's review of the Directive's provision enabling individual opt-outs from the 48-hour limit will result in a recommendation for its discontinuation, particularly as the average weekly working hours of full-time employees in the UK are the highest anywhere in the EU. The TUC thinks that such an outcome is 'almost certain'. Interestingly, Patricia Hewitt's speech to the conference made no reference to the future of the individual opt-out, and in reply to questions on this issue she was non-committal about the government's likely stance, stating that the DTI would undertake consultations on the Commission's eventual report. However, the Financial Times recently reported that ministers want to keep the opt-out provision.

Beyond the issue of the individual opt-out, both the TUC and the government favour concerted action to promote voluntary agreements to reduce long working hours and extend the availability of flexible working time arrangements to more employees. The TUC, however, is already pressing for further statutory intervention too. In particular, the TUC would like to see the proposed new right to flexible working for the parents of young children strengthened and extended to all workers. (Mark Hall, IRRU)