CELEX: 51990PC0317
Language: en
Date: 1990-09-20
Title: PROPOSAL FOR A COUNCIL DIRECTIVE CONCERNING CERTAIN ASPECTS OF THE ORGANISATION OF WORKING TIME

No C 254/4                            Official Journal of the European Communities                                  9. 10. 90
                                                              II
                                                       (Preparatory Acts)
                                                 COMMISSION
               Proposal for a Council Directive concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time
                                               COM(90) 317 final — SYN 295
                                      (Submitted by the Commission on 3 August 1990)
                                                        (90/C 254/05)
 THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,                          improvement in the living and working conditions of
                                                                   workers, a process which must result from an approxi-
 Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European             mation of these conditions, while maintaining the
 Economic Community, and in particular Article 118a                improvement, as regards in particular the duration and
 thereof,                                                          organization of working time; whereas point 8 states
                                                                   that every worker of the European Community shall
                                                                   have a right to a weekly rest period and to annual paid
 Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,                leave, the duration of which must be progressively
                                                                   harmonized in accordance with national practices;
 In cooperation with the European Parliament,
                                                                   Whereas point 19 of the said Charter affirms that every
 Having regard to the opinion of the Economic and                  worker must enjoy satisfactory health and safety
 Social Committee,                                                 conditions in his working environment and that appro-
                                                                   priate measures must be taken in order to achieve further
Whereas Article 118a of the EEC Treaty provides that               harmonization of conditions in this area while main-
 the Council shall adopt, by means of Directives,                  taining the improvement made;
 minimum requirements for encouraging improvements,
 especially in the working environment, to guarantee a             Whereas the European Parliament considers it indis-
 better level of protection of the safety and health of            pensable in its resolution of 15 March 1989 (2) on the
workers;                                                           social dimension of the internal market that minimum
                                                                   rules should be adopted which establish a ceiling for
Whereas, pursuant to that Article, such Directives must            daily and weekly working time;
 avoid imposing administrative, financial and legal
constraints which would hold back the creation and
                                                                   Whereas in order to achieve improvement in the health
development of small and medium-sized undertakings;
                                                                   and safety of workers certain minimum daily and weekly
                                                                   rest periods should be complied with for all workers in
Whereas       the   provisions    of   Council     Directive       the Community;
 89/391 / E E C of 12 June 1989 on the introduction of
measures to encourage improvements in the safety and
health of workers at work (*) are fully applicable in              Whereas this Directive is consequent upon the need to
relation to the matters covered by this Directive without          lay down minimum rules for certain aspects of the
prejudice to more stringent and/or specific provisions             organization of working time from the point of view of
contained herein;                                                  the health and safety of the workers concerned; whereas
                                                                   these rules are without prejudice to other provisions
                                                                   which are propitious to a better state of health., such as
Whereas laying down minimum requirements with                      annual paid leave;
regard to individual periods of rest and of work
improves the working conditions referred to in Article
 118a;                                                            Whereas research has shown that long periods of night
                                                                  work and alternations in shift work patterns can be
                                                                   detrimental to the health of workers and can endanger
Whereas the Community Charter of the Fundamental
                                                                   safety at the workplace;
Social Rights of Workers states at Title I, point 7 that
the completion of the internal market must lead to an
(«) OJ No L 183, 29. 6. 1989, p. 1.                                O OJ No C 96, 17. 4. 1989, p. 61.
 ---pagebreak--- 9. 10. 90                              Official Journal of the European Communities                            No C 254/5
Whereas particular care should therefore be taken         to                                Article 2
limit the duration of night work, to take account         of
                                                                 For the purpose of this Directive the following defi-
alternations in shift work patterns, to limit the amount  of
                                                                 nitions shall apply:
overtime in connection with night work and duly           to
inform the competent authority of the introduction        of
night work;                                                       1. 'working time' means hours of work as laid down by
                                                                     legislation, collective/enterprise agreement or indi-
                                                                     vidual employment contract during which the
Whereas the human body is especially sensitive at night              employee is at the disposal of the employer at the
to environmental disturbances and also to certain                    work-site;
particularly burdensome forms' of work organization
such as piece work, assembly-line work or work at a              2. 'rest period' means any period after the normal daily
pre-established pace;                                                or weekly performance of work during which the
                                                                     employee is not at the disposal of the employer;
Whereas it is important that a health assessment should           3. 'night work' means all work performed during a
be afforded to employees before being assigned to night              period of not less than seven consecutive hours
work and at regular intervals thereafter, that they receive          comprised between 8.00 p.m. and 9.00 a.m.;
advice in order to prevent, reduce or avoid the adverse
effects of night work and that night workers should be            4. 'shift work' means a method of work organization
allowed to transfer to daytime work if their health so               whereby workers succeed each other in accordance
requires;                                                            with a certain time schedule; this may involve rotating
                                                                     or successive crews and be discontinuous or
                                                                     continuous;
Whereas the features of minimum rest periods and
certain aspects of the organization of night and shift            5. 'night worker' means an employee who performs night
working time, peculiar to the seasonal nature of the                 work, whether through shift work or otherwise on a
work or specific to certain activities or resulting from             regular basis;
exceptional situations limited in time should be duly
taken into account and at the same time equivalent
                                                                  6. 'shift worker' means an employee rostered into a shift
protection afforded to the employees concerned;
                                                                     work schedule.
Whereas changes in the patterns of working time, and                                      SECTION II
more in particular adjustments to the pace of work may
affect the work-load of the workers concerned and thus                           Daily, weekly and yearly rest
be harmful to their health and safety; whereas it is
therefore necessary to take account of these factors                                        Article 3
when patterns of work are changed;                                Member States shall adopt the necessary measures to
                                                                  ensure compliance with the minimum daily rest period of
                                                                  11 consecutive hours per period of 24 hours.
Whereas this Directive covers only certain fundamental
aspects of the organization of working time, which are
considered particularly important from the point of view                                    Article 4
of workers' health and safety at the workplace,
                                                                  Member States shall adopt the necessary measures to
                                                                  ensure compliance, in every seven-day period, with the
                                                                  minimum period of one rest day on average following
HAS ADOPTED THIS DIRECTIVE:                                       without interruption the daily rest period as defined in
                                                                  Article 3 calculated over a reference period of not more
                                                                  than 14 days.
                        SECTION I
                    Scope and definitions                                                   Article 5
                          Article 1                               Member States shall adopt the necessary measures to
 1.   This Directive applies to minimum daily, weekly             ensure that all workers are afforded an annual paid
and yearly rest periods and to certain aspects of night           holiday for a minimum period; the procedures relating to
                                                                  duration and any splitting shall be determined in
and shift work.
                                                                  accordance with national practices.
2.    The provisions of Directive 89/391/EEC are fully
                                                                                            Article 6
applicable to the matters referred to in paragraph 1
without prejudice to more stringent and/or specific               The performance of overtime must not interfere with the
provisions contained in this Directive.                           minimum rest periods laid down in Articles 3 and 4.
 ---pagebreak--- No C 254/6                              Official Journal of the European Communities                                 9. 10. 90
                         SECTION III                                                      SECTION IV
        Night work, shift work and patterns of work                                      Final provisions
                            Article 7                                                       Article 12
 1.     Normal hours of work for night workers shall not          Derogations from the provisions set out in Articles 3, 4
exceed an average of eight hours in any 24-hour period            and 7 are permitted:
calculated over a reference period not longer than 14
days in which they perform night work.                             1. in cases of force majeure, or of an actual or imminent
                                                                      accident, provided that equivalent compensatory rest
2.      In the event of shift work involving night work the           periods are granted to the employees concerned;
working of two consecutive full-time shifts shall be
                                                                  2. where the seasonal nature of the work performed or
prohibited.
                                                                      the features peculiar to certain activities or excep-
3.      Subject to the provisions contained in paragraph 1,           tional situations limited in time objectively conflict
no overtime shall be performed by night workers before                with the said provisions, provided that equivalent
or after a daily period of work which includes night                  compensatory rest periods are granted within a
work in occupations involving special hazards or heavy                reference period which must not exceed six months;
physical or mental strain.
                                                                  3. in case of collective agreements made between
4.     The scheduling and total length of breaks for                  employers and representatives of the workers at the
rotating shift workers and for night workers shall take               appropriate levels, aiming at setting up a compre-
account of the more demanding nature of those forms of                hensive set of provisions regarding the adjustment of
working time.                                                         working time corresponding to the specific conditions
                                                                      of the enterprise, including daily and weekly rest
                                                                      periods as well as night and shift work, subject to the
                            Article 8
                                                                      condition that on these specific points equivalent
 1.    Employees durably subject to working time                      periods of compensatory rest are granted to the
arrangements involving night work shall be entitled to a              workers within a reference period that must not
health assessment without charge prior to their                       exceed six months.
assignment and at regular intervals thereafter.
2.     Where a night worker suffers from health problems                                    Article 13
recognized to be connected with the fact that he                  The provisions contained in this Directive shall be
performs night work he shall be transferred, as soon as           without prejudice to other specific provisions taken by
possible, to day work for which he is fit.                        the Community.
                            Article 9
                                                                                            Article 14
The employer who regularly uses night workers shall
                                                                  Member States shall comply with this Directive by
duly inform the authorities competent in matters of               31 December 1992 at the latest, by bringing into force
health and safety.                                                the laws, regulations or administrative provisions
                                                                  necessary or by ensuring that the two sides of industry
                           Article 10                             establish the necessary provisions through agreement,
Member States shall adopt the necessary measures to               without prejudice to the obligation on the Member
ensure that night workers and rotating shift workers              States to achieve the results to be obtained by this
shall have a level of protection with regard to health and        Directive.
safety commensurate with the nature of their work. The
employer shall ensure that protection and prevention              The provisions adopted by the Member States pursuant
facilities are available or accessible at all times.              to the first paragraph shall make express reference to this
                                                                  Directive.
                           Article 11
                                                                  Member States shall forthwith inform the Commission of
Member States shall ensure that employers take the                the measures taken thereunder.
necessary measures to ensure that changes made to
patterns of work take account, according to the type of                                     Article 15
activity, of health and safety requirements, especially as
regards breaks during working hours.                              This Directive is addressed to the Member States.