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Parliament acknowledged our concerns. Our mutual cooperation
showed that we can make a change for the European workers,”
Cristina Tilling, the ETF Political Secretary for Road Transport
said.
Eduardo Chagas, the ETF General Secretary added: “The
positive outcome of this campaign shows the importance of fighting
together on European level for work quality, health and safety and
decent jobs for European workers.”
An adoption of the Commission proposal would have increased the
working time for self-employed drivers from 48 to 86 hours per
week. It would have been a real incentive for the industry to
convert employed drivers into false self-employed, an opportunity
for social dumping and a decline of social conditions in the road
sector. Moreover, if drivers had been pushed to work for more than
13 hours a day, this would have seriously undermined safety on the
European roads and would have had a critical impact on drivers’ and
other road users health and safety. Scientific evidence shows
that fatigue is caused by repetitive long working days and
increases the risk of road accidents.
Fatigue is a significant factor in approximately 20% of
commercial road transport crashes. Surveys show that over 50% of
long haul drivers have fallen asleep at the wheel.
Ron Webb National Secretary for the Road Transport section
of Unite declared this as a major victory against the relentless
drive to undermine the safety of our members on the road. “If
this proposal had become a reality it would have driven wide spread
redundancies as independent owner operators battle race to the
bottom undermining the future of the large fleet operators. It
would have also given these operators an excuse to lay off its
drivers in favour of contract drivers who would have been able to
drive far longer without breaking the law. Such a move would have
been at the expense of their personal safety and that of others on
the road. Thankfully this proposal has been decisively crushed by
this vote and we pray we will not see its like
again.”
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