MEPs vote to end opt-out

Reacting to the European Parliament's decision today to end the controversial opt-out from the EU's working time directive, Jean Lambert, UK Green co-ordinator of the Parliament's employment committee, said:

"MEPs today decided that EU countries cannot opt out of laws that protect the health and safety of workers. It is clearly unacceptable for member states to compete on labour market standards and I hope that the European Council is paying attention to this message."

"The report we adopted today will empower European workers by giving them the legal right to refuse to work for more than 48 hours in any one week. The Parliament also improved the original proposals to classify 'on-call' time as working time."

[ENDS]