Unions step up pressure on working hours

Trade unions in the UK are increasing their campaign against long hours worked in investment banks by back and middle-office staff.

A survey by three Cambridge University academics for the European Commission found that two investment banks in London asked between 90% and 100% of all their staff to opt out of the European Working Time Regulations, which restrict employees to an average of 48 hours a week.

It did not identify the banks, but said one has 500 employees and focuses on mergers and acquisitions, while the other is owned by a continental European bank and has about 1,500 employees.

The report found that senior staff at one of the banks were typically expected to work 60 hours a week. High work volumes and the importance of individual personalities to the success of deals were given as reasons for the extra hours.

The report was written in 2002, but was first made public last month by the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in the UK. The TUC is campaigning for an end to the right to opt-out of the European Working Time regulations.

Lawyers say the UK has the most widespread opting-out arrangements of all EU countries. The EU is currently reviewing the implementation of the Working Time Regulations and the UK's use of the opt-out. The review began in early January and will end in March.

Brendan Barber, the TUC General Secretary, said: "If workers are not to be bullied into working excessive hours, the individual opt-out must go." A spokesperson for the TUC said more than 150,000 finance sector employees regularly clock up more than 48 hours.

Richard Lynch, a spokesman for Unifi, the banking trade union, said : 'A lot of people work silly hours. Opting out of the working hours regulations is endemic across the industry.'

Michelle Levin, an employment specialist at the law firm Fox Williams, said investment banks routinely require all staff, no matter how junior, to opt out of the working time regulations when they sign their employment contract.

By law employers may not insist employees work more than 48 hours a week, nor subject them to any detriment if they decide not to do so. However, Levin said it is difficult to establish a link between adverse treatment and unwillingness to work more than 48-hour weeks. 'The reality is that your future career prospects would probably be damaged.'

The head of graduate recruitment at a US bank said new staff were asked to sign an opt-out, but were not expected to do so. 'We give everyone information on the opt-out agreement when they start work. No one is under any pressure to sign it,' she said.

Simon Deakin at the Judge Institute of Management, one of the authors of the report, said banks were merely taking advantage of provisions in the directive which allow employees to opt-out providing they are fully informed of their rights.

'It is difficult for organisations like investment banks to tie their staff to rigidly limited working hours,' said Deakin.

However unions say many back and middle-office jobs could be done efficiently without the opt-out.