Whilst – thanks to the Road Transport (Working Time) Directive – an average of maximal 48 working hours per week applies to employees of haulage companies, false self-employed drivers are now able to work up to 86 hours. Although the last word has not yet been spoken on this Directive, the vote in the Employment Committee of the European Parliament, however, gives cause for great concern.

Previous history: prior to the EU-elections, both the Employment Committee and the Plenum of the European Parliament voted against the proposal of the European Commission to exempt self-employed drivers from the Working Time Directive. Already then, the European Transport Workers' Federation, the Austrian Services Union vida and the Austrian Federal Chamber of Labour drew attention to the consequences of such an exemption:

• A negative impact on road safety can be anticipated because as a result of working up to 86 hours it can be expected that the concentration of HGV drivers will decline, whereby it doesn’t matter whether a driver is employed or self-employed. The often quoted Regulation 561/2006 on harmonisation of social legislation, driving times, breaks and rest periods for drivers is not of much help here – this regulation controls the driving times and rest periods of HGVs. The working hours (, which include apart from driving all administrative activities, inspection of the vehicle, loading and unloading etc.) nevertheless remain at 86 hours.
• The competitiveness between haulage companies is distorted. Whilst companies that employ drivers working under employment contract have to adhere to a restriction of maximal 48 working hours per week under the Working Time Directive, this does not apply to companies working with false self-employed drivers. Hence, the pressure on companies with drivers working under employment contract will increase to turn their employees into bogus self-employed drivers. This will once again aggravate the situation of people working in the transport industry. It is to be feared that that the already existing social dumping in this sector will significantly increase.
• Even if this false self-employment was regulated – an end of this unfair practice is still not in sight: it is hardly possible to determine for control organs whether an HGV driver is a “genuine” self-employed driver or a false self-employed drivers. How for example should a Bulgarian executive official be able to judge whether a German HGV driver is really self-employed?

For reasons of the Rules of procedure of the European Parliament it was necessary to obtain confirmation of the first vote. Unfortunately this confirmation was not provided by the newly composed European Parliament. As a result, a new report on the Directive is now prepared by the Employment Committee in a next step. In spite of the critical attitude by parts of the Liberals, the parties with close industrial ties (European Peoples’ Party, Conservatives, Europe of Freedom, Liberals), which have a share of the votes of 59 percent in total will presumably find it easy to prevail against Socialists & Democrats, Greens and the European United Left.

The vote in the Employment Committee on the Directive on Working Time in road transport is probably only a foretaste of what employed drivers can expect from the new majorities in the European Parliament over the next 5 years.