Brussels, 17/12/2008
Commenting on today’s vote of the European Parliament on the revision of the Working Time Directive, John Monks, General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), declared: ‘This very welcome decision by the European Parliament completes a very good week for all workers of the EU. We have equality for temporary agency workers. We have stronger European Works Councils to help workers through the recession. Now, we have defeated moves to make it easier for bad employers to impose excessive working hours. Obviously the economic situation is very worrying, but these three steps have shown that Social Europe is alive and well. We are grateful for all those who have supported us in this fight. The Euro-demonstration, comprising 15,000 trade unionists in Strasbourg, lifted our campaign and helped persuade European parliamentarians to do the right thing’.