The European Parliament has voted to limit working hours for self-employed bus and truck drivers to 48 hours a week, meaning they now they now come under the European Working Time Directive. MEPs approved the measure by a 67-vote margin in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

The Irish Road Haulage Association says that self-employed drivers will see their available driving time shrink to the point that their businesses would no longer be viable.

Assistant Garda Commissioner Kevin Ludlow says that hauliers are using magnetic devices to tamper with their digital tachographs to give the impression that a truck has been parked up, when it was in fact on the road.

Describing the practice as “an accident waiting to happen” the Assistant Garda Commissioner said that tampering with the tachograph, could also affect the braking system on the vehicle.

The Garda chief said the magnet also disabled the truck’s anti-lock brakes and the speedometer.

He said that two truck drivers had already been prosecuted for tampering with the tachograph and that other prosecutions were pending.

Underlying the importance of supporting the Commission’s proposal to revise the Directive, IRU Head of Social Affairs, Damian Viccars, stressed that by rejecting the Commission’s proposal, important measures improving the enforcement of the Directive in general and cracking down on fake self-employment, could be lost.

MEPs were therefore encouraged to support the European Commission’s proposals to define night work in line with other working time legislation.

MEPs must thus imperatively rectify this situation to avoid the consequent unemployment of self-employed drivers and stop using road safety as a fallacious argument for including self-employed drivers in the scope of the Working Time Directive.

Following the European Parliament Employment and Social Affairs Committee’s rejection of the draft Bauer report advocating support for the Commission proposal to exclude self employed drivers from the Working Time Directive at EU level, the IRU urges MEPs to reverse this decision when the proposal comes to vote again in Plenary this June.

The IRU strongly supports the exclusion at EU level of self employed drivers from the scope of the Directive, while supporting the possibility for Member States to apply the Directive’s provision to such drivers if considered necessary after thorough consultation with the industry.

The President of the IRU’s EU Goods Transport Liaison Committee, Alexander Sakkers, stressed: “The rationale of working time legislation is to ensure that salaried workers are not forced to work more than they wish to. Since this is irrelevant for independent owner drivers, the road safety argument has been misused by some to encourage their inclusion at EU level. This is entirely unjustified, considering the extensive EU regulatory framework focusing on road safety. The EP Committee has ignored that EU Driving and Rest Time Rules and the Tachograph Regulation apply to all drivers irrespective of their employment status and are thus the true safeguards of road safety in the sector. This is something I will bring forward in the meeting the IRU will have with Vice President Kallas on the 29 April.”

Moreover, by rejecting the Commission proposal, important measures improving the enforcement of the Directive in general and cracking down on fake self employment in particular, could be lost. The IRU also urges MEPS to support the European Commission’s proposals that bring the definition of night work in line with other working time legislation.

MEPs should rectifiy this situation to avoid the subsequent massive unemployment of self employed drivers and stop using road safety as a fallacious argument for including self employed drivers in the scope of the Working Time Directive.