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Swiss trade unions protest against the newly proposed working time rules

16 March 2010

On 16 March 2010 the Swiss trade unions Unia, SEV (Swiss Railway and Transport Trade Union) and Kommunikation organised a demonstration in front of the Swiss Parliament in Bern. Professional drivers, trade union activists and members of the Swiss Parliament joined the demonstration and protested against the exclusion of self-employed drivers from the EU Working Time Directive. The plans of the Swiss Federal Council to increase the weekly maximum working hours of professional drivers up to 60 hours was also subject of the protest.

Michael Reiterer, the EU Ambassador in Switzerland, and André Scharde, the representative from the Swiss Transport Ministry, received a protest letter from a delegation of Swiss drivers, Swiss trade unions and the ETF, represented by August Schönauer (Vida), member of the ETF Road Transport Section Steering Committee and Inga-Lena Heinisch from the Brussels-based ETF Secretariat.

For safer roads and decent jobs
The participants of the demonstration expressed their concern about the consequences of the newly proposed working time rules and the possible increase of the weekly working hours for professional drivers in Switzerland. “We are concerned about the health of the professional drivers. We all want – drivers and citizens – to travel to work and perform our work in an accident-free environment,” Vania Alleva (Unia) explained.

If the newly proposed Working Time rules are adopted in its current form, the revised law will increase the working time for self-employed drivers from 48 to 86 hours per week. It thus gives an incentive to companies to convert the employed drivers into false self-employed with the possibility to drive more than 13 hours a day. Since fatigue is a significant factor in approximately 20% of commercial road transport crashes, this proposal increases the risk of road accidents and puts the safety of all road users in danger.

Lately, the ETF has intensified lobby activities and national actions. Meetings with the government authorities and with MEPs have been organised in key Member States.

Back in January 2010, the ETF Road Transport Section decided to launch a working time campaign to stretch over March and April, and fulminate with a major action – to be organised consecutively in several Member States at the end of this two-month period. For more information about this campaign, please visit our campaign website by clicking on the link below.

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Related pages:

Working Time Directive Campaign
SAY NO! to 84-86 hour work week for professional drivers

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