Brussels, 06/10/2004
ETUC welcomes the judgement of the European Court of Justice on the Working Time Directive which was made public on October 5th, as a further step to effectively limit excessive working hours of ‘on-call' work
In respect of paramedics of the rescue service, the Court has reconfirmed its important jurisprudence on on-call work which has to be regarded as working time. Exemptions from the scope of the Working Time Directive have to be interpreted in a very narrow way. This is all the more important against the background of downward amendments discussed on October 4th during the Employment and Social Affairs Council.
Furthermore, the Court obliged national courts to do their utmost to make provisions of Community law effective. This will lead to more court cases [[Judgement Joined Cases C-397/01, C-398/01, C-399/01, C-400/01, C-401/01, C-402/01, C-403/01 - Pfeiffer Interpretation of Council Directive 93/104/EC concerning certain aspects of the organisation of working time - Scope (reference to Article 2 of Directive 89/391/EC in Article 1(3) of the directive) - Whether paramedics of the rescue service are included - Whether the exclusion in respect of road transport (Article 1(3) of the directive) covers road transport by paramedics - Formal requirements governing individual agreement by the employee to working time exceeding from time to time 48 hours per week (Article 18(1)(b)(i) of the directive) - Possibility of reliance (as against a private employer) on Article 6 of the directive before the courts]] in which EU directives in general and labour rights such as the limitation of working hours in particular play a decisive role.