Arbetstidsdirektivet och arbetstidslagen - En utredande studie
Direktiv 2003/88/EGDirektiv 93/104/EGArbetstidslagenVeckovilaJuridical scienceRättsvetenskapJuridikLaw and Political Science
Sweden is a member of the European Union since 1995. The European Union issues directives that cover different areas. Member states must implement these directives into their national legislation. The European council issued in 1993 a directive that took action on the organization of working time, also known as the working time directive. The full name is: Council directive 93/104/EC of 23 November 1993 concerning certain aspects of the organization of working time. The directive was to be implemented in all member states due November 23rd 1996. Sweden implemented the directive by making a few changes in the statute, working hours act (SFS 1982:673). The European Commission sued the Swedish government in 2005. The Commission meant that Sweden had not implemented directive 93/104/EC satisfyingly. This led to more extensive changes in the working hours act. The revised statute became effective in July 1st 2005. Directive 93/104/EC has been revised and is now directive 2003/88/EC. It is not obvious how to interpret directive 2003/88/EC. The European Court has in a few cases interpreted directive 93/104/EC. The interpretation of directive 93/104/EC also complies to directive 2003/88/EC. These cases give some guidelines in how to apply the articles in an organization. Directive 2003/88/EC regulates, among other things, maximum weekly working time. The working hours act is a non-compulsory act. This means that parts or the entire act is possible to ignore if a collective agreement replaces it?s regulations. If so is done the collective agreement has to follow the minimum regulations of directive 2003/88/EC. This paper focuses mainly on how to apply and interpret the directive if the organization has a collective agreement that replaces the working hours act. A comparison between directive 2003/88/EC and the working hours act are also made. The result of the directive is that employees no longer are able to work as they used to do. For example no one can work more than 48 hours a week in average. The comparison shows that the working hours act has in some cases stricter regulations than directive 2003/88/EC.