Fishing Industry And The Working Time Directive

EDM number 23 in 1998-99, proposed by Austin Mitchell on 24/11/1998.

That this House recognises that it would be folly to require the fishing industry to comply with the rigours of the EU Working Time Directive because most fisherman are not employees but are share fishermen and co-adventurers in a hunting activity prosecuted in a changeable and dangerous marine environment, subject to dramatic changes of weather, where fishing opportunities have to be fully seized when they arise and where fishermen are on call twenty hours a day when at sea, that the industry and lives of the men who depend on it can only succeed when they work as a team, putting in longer hours when the fish are running; notes that the pattern of work is therefore hard with little sleep and invariably followed by house of inactivity as the vessels steam to or from the grounds, none of which can be fitted into rigid working times and rest time schedules; further notes that British fishing is the most diverse in Europe including distant water, inshore, beam trawling, line fishing, potting, seine net, gill netting, pair trawling, tangle net fishing, scalloping, in which each has its own unique conditions and routines; recalls that there has been no demand for working time rules from any section of an industry which would be seriously handicapped if they were to be imposed; and urges the Government to maintain for fishing the common sense exemption which it has enjoyed since the Directive was first agreed in 1993 on the grounds that the Directive would be unworkable, and that it would cripple the industry and destroy the present working arrangements whether fishermen were to individually opt in or out of the provisions of the Directive.

This motion has been signed by a total of 35 MPs.