2. THE WORKING TIME REGULATIONS

The UK’s legal framework for managing the risks of long-hours working now involves a “family” of working time regulations and parallel rules (such as the Drivers’ Hours Rules). Simply complying with these is, on its own, “insufficient to manage the risks of fatigue” (HSE) but it is a key starting point.

Small and not-so-small differences between the different measures of working time regulation help illustrate minimum levels of recognised practice, especially for a “mixed” workforce where more than one set of regulations or rules may apply.

The UK’s working time regulations are based mainly on a series of European Directives (to which it may be necessary to refer directly in any dispute over the intentions of the law):

• 93/104/EC on the organisation of working time (the original EWTD), amended by the Excluded Sectors Directive 2000/34/EC, subsequently consolidated into 2003/88/EC;

• 94/33/EC concerning the protection of young people at work;

• 1999/63/EC & 1999/95/EC concerning seafarers;

• 2000/79/EC concerning the social partner agreement for mobile workers in civil aviation;

• 2002/15/EC concerning mobile road transport activities; and

• 2005/47/EC concerning the social partner agreement for mobile workers in inter-operable cross-border railway services.