MEPs deal blow to Blair on work hours

[sweetheart]

The European Parliament on Wednesday inflicted a significant blow on Tony Blair's election pledge to back wealth-creators and flexible labour markets when it voted decisively to end Britain's right to opt out of limits on working hours.

The prime minister now faces a difficult fight at European ministerial level to block the MEPs' vote. Business groups warned it would be a “hammer blow” to the UK economy if Britain was with out the right to opt out of rules restricting the average working week to 48 hours. Losing the opt-out would affect more than 40 per cent of employers, according to a survey by the Institute of Directors, ensuring about 4m employees worked fewer hours.
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TThe vote against the UK, which included several Labour MEPs, will fuel arguments at Brussels about whether strict labour-market controls are damaging Europe's economy.

Alejandro Cercas, the Spanish Socialist MEP who led the parliament's review of the working time legislation, said: “We have today started a long march in favour of our social Europe. Our European citizens want sensible and reasonable working hours and they don't want social dumping in any part of the EU.”

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/b1d76440-c25c-11d9-866a-00000e2511c8.html

Watch the torys bitch and whine about this!! Oh dear, that damn
europe is interfering with our wage slavery.

[ben_packard]

1. ooops...

just started my own topic on this at the same time, is there a way we can combine the two?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

2. The right are saying "this is going to cripple the economy"

I don't think so... but I thought the national minimum wage was going to cripple the economy according to the right-wing? :)

"...flexible labour markets" To me, flexible labour markets equals "temp'ing" (employment) agencies. The Neoliberals' wet-dream.