Free from work

The First European Conference on the "Protection of the Work-Free Sunday" will be held March 24 at the European Parliament in Brussels, on the eve of the Heads of Government and State meeting scheduled for next March 25-26. Several European trade unions (such as DGB and ÖGB in Germany and Austria), civil society organisations and Churches support the conference, along with COMECE and the CEC’s "Church and Society" Commission. Family association networks in France and Germany (respectively Catholic and Protestant) equally support the initiative, which shows that Sunday work would affect family life. László Andor, the new EU Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs will take the floor, as well as 8 MEPs from different political groups and over 130 participants. The objective is to promote a joint lobbying campaign. Follows a snapshot of the issue’s technical aspects. The first regulation. Article 5 of EU Council "Working-Time" Directive 93/104/CE of November 23rd 1993 made mention of a "weekly rest", and underlined that "Member States should take the relevant measures so that each worker may enjoy a minimum period of uninterrupted rest every 7 days". The Directive stipulated that Sunday should be "in principle" the weekly day of rest. This reference had been withdrawn by the European Court of Justice on November 12 1996, on the grounds that "the Council had not given sufficient reasons as to a link between a work-free Sunday and the protection of workers’ health". This position does not exclude the possibility that the directive may be reconsidered to include Sunday rest, while there is a unsaid invitation to show why Sunday is considered more important for workers’ wellbeing than any other day of the week (with reference to physical and mental health as well as social welfare). The value of Sunday. More than other days of the week, work-free Sunday promotes work-family balance, given that schools and universities are closed on Sundays, and parents can spend time with their children. Also art. 10 of the directive on the protection of the youth in the job environment indicates Sunday as day of rest. Therefore a different day would negatively affect family relations. Moreover Sunday, more than any other day of the week helps establish and preserve social bonds, and develops the spiritual dimension whilst enabling citizens to engage in cultural activities. It has been shown that Sunday work causes breakdowns and its negative pressure is such as to impact on workers’ state of health, resulting in high sick leave rates, as shown in a research conducted in 2007 by EUROFOUND, the EU agency for life conditions improvement (http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/pubdocs/2006/105/en/1/ef06105en.pdf), and highlighted in a survey conducted by English researchers Claire Lyonette and Michael Clark on "unusual" working hours titled, "Unsocial Hours: Unsocial Families?, Working Time and Family Wellbeing", (Cambridge 2009)Expired directive. The debate on the protection of Sunday is being relaunched at European level, since the 1993 directive is no longer valid and a new one is planned for the next months. Past September various religious organizations, trade unions, and civil society bodies in the German-speaking area of Europe submitted a request to Social Affairs Commissioner Vladimir Spidla, asking that the new directive specifically envisage work-free Sunday. On November 16 MEP Thomas Mann (EPP) filed a question for written answer calling the European Commission to conduct research on the relationship between Sunday rest and workers’ wellbeing, in case the Commission rejected the validity of previously conducted surveys. On December 17 Commissioner Spidla, while not opposing Mann’s claims, nor those of the German associations, stated that "ethic, cultural and religious diversities, along with other prevailing factors within Member States will need to be taken into due consideration", and that "Member States are those that must decide whether Sunday will be the weekly day of rest". Now the responsibility lies in the hands of the Social Affairs Commissioner-elect László Andor from Hungary.