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Bogg, Alan --- "The regulation of working time in Europe" [2016] ELECD 1421; in Bogg, Alan; Costello, Cathryn; Davies, C.L. A. (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Labour Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 267

Book Title: Research Handbook on EU Labour Law

Editor(s): Bogg, Alan; Costello, Cathryn; Davies, C.L. A.

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783471119

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: The regulation of working time in Europe

Author(s): Bogg, Alan

Number of pages: 32

Abstract/Description:

One of the most remarkable legal and political achievements of European labour law has been Directive 93/104/EC (Working Time Directive – WTD) concerned with the organisation of working time. It established an enduring legal structure of Europe-wide regulation of working time. This has given rise to a sophisticated body of interpretive law from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), much of it at the cutting-edge of the Court’s fundamental rights jurisprudence. Over the last decade, there have been a series of attempts to achieve legislative reform of the WTD, and the failures in this regard underline the politically controversial nature of working time regulation. Working time continues to provide a terrain where political and economic ideologies clash. The question of who controls the worker’s time is likely to remain fundamental to power struggles over the organisation of work in capitalist societies for the foreseeable future. It is little surprise that the first ILO Convention was concerned with working hours, and the question remains as fundamental to labour law today as it was at the birth of international labour law in 1919. This chapter considers the current state of European working time regulation, and its future prospects. Section 2 provides a basic overview of the WTD. Section 3 examines the development of working time in Europe, examining its trends and patterns in different member states.