Posted By George Wedgwood Chris, key changes will be based on; Maintaining the option of the individual opt-out from the 48 hour week but making it subject to stricter conditions to prevent abuse, Allowing Member States the possibility of extending the reference period for calculating the 48 hour maximum working wek from 4 months to a year A provision that time spent on call that is not worked, would not be counted as working time with compensatory rest granted within 72 hours. The UK thinks that the EU has got this wrong so watch the sparks if the big players decide against the changes, if finally agreed. I have a long-time office based employee at one site who works 5&1/2 days every week from 7 to 5.30 - way in excess of the 48 hrs - even over the 17 week reference period! And she is not alone - we have employees working regularly on machinery working 12-14 hrs a day up to 6 days a week! This is not abnormal and they all like doing it, so it will be interesting to see how much enforcement comes along (I doubt it). The Transport Sector gets the biggest shakeup with VOSA enforcing the drivers hours and that will be done rigorously in accordance with the Working Time Regulations (as amended) 1998 - changes forced by the EU road Transport Directive - 23 March 2005 - 2002/15/EC The directive you refer to is at: http://europa.eu.int.com...irective_proposal_en.pdf Enjoy!! Regards, George