Reviewing the Working Time Directive: rationale, implementation and case law

• Date: 01 June 2001
• Author: Stephen Hardy,Nick Adnett
• Published date: 01 June 2001
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2338.00187

Industrial Relations Journal 32:2

ISSN 0019-8692

Reviewing the Working

Time Directive: rationale,

implementation and case

law

Nick Adnett and Stephen Hardy

In November 1993 the Social Affairs Council of the EU

adopted the Directive on the Organisation of Working Time.

The EU Commission is committed to a review of the operation

of this Directive in 2003. In this paper we re-examine the econ-

omic rationale for such regulations, assess the different legal

arrangements for the implementation of the Directive and

summarise recent case law. In conclusion, we suggest that the

forthcoming review is likely to provide an important indi-

cator of any EU reassessment of economic and social pri-

orities.

The EU’s Social Affairs Council adopted the Working Time Directive 93/104/EC

(WTD) in 1993 under Article 118a (now Article 138) of the Treaty on the European

Union. The main provisions of this Directive are to limit maximum hours of working,

and establish minimum entitlements to rest periods and paid annual leave for most

workers in the EU. It had taken nearly four years for the EU Commission to gain

agreement for its proposals on working time. During this period the social aspirations

of the original draft Directive were much debated. Whilst the changes made to the

WTD between these drafts were due to a variety of different influences and practices

across the EU, one major influence was British Government opposition. The then

British Government wished to retain what it believed to be a key aspect of its US-

style employment relations: the virtual absence of working time regulations. This

resistance was based upon orthodox economic theory, which argues that competition

forces employers to agree working hours in line with the preferences of individual

employees (Addison et al., 1997). Employers who find it expensive to match these

preferences will, in order to recruit and retain workers, have to provide compensation

in the form of higher wages. Thus the theory of compensating wage differentials

predicts that most individuals will be working their utility maximising number of

❒Nick Adnett is Professor of Economics, at Staffordshire University Business School and Stephen

Hardy is Reader in European Employment Law at Manchester School of Management, UMIST.

Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main St., Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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