Employment Bulletin - March 1999

Hours is not to reason why

In this month's Bulletin we reflect on the first cases filtering through in relation to the EU Working Time Directive (WTD) and the Working Time Regulations 1998 (WTR). The UK Government was supposed to have incorporated the WTD into English law by 23 November 1996 but due to the last Government's political opposition to the whole basis of the WTD, the WTR only came into force on 1st October 1998.

The first case (Barber v RJB Mining (UK) Ltd) addresses workers' rights under Regulation 4 of the WTR - the 48 hour working week. Five pit deputies argued before the High Court that the 48 hour limit in the WTR over-rode any provision in their employment contract which allowed their employer to dictate what hours they worked. As a result, the deputies claimed that they were entitled to stop working until their average working hours, calculated over the 17 week reference period, fell below the 48 hour limit. The Court agreed with the deputies (as well as