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Agency hours must be checked for ED
Page 8
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• by Sally Nash
Months of tachograph records belonging to agency drivers will come under intense scrutiny once the Working Time Directive is in place, according to solicitors Ford & Warren.
Speaking at the Road Haulage Association's first Spring Convention in France, transport lawyer Stephen Kirkbright stressed that hauliers will be responsible for ensuring that all drivers do not exceed an average 48 hours on a rolling 17week basis.
This will mean that transport firms will have to ask driver agencies for proof of hours worked. "This may be an academic responsibility but you will have to make all reasonable efforts to get the information from the agencies and say to them If you don't produce it I won't use you'," added Kirkbright. "As long as drivers are working for you, they are covered by the directive."
The regulations will also place more burdens on operators to check what other jobs employed drivers are doing in a bid to keep within the law.
Although Kirkbright took 17 weeks as a rolling average, employers can work to their own 'reference period" as long as it is agreed with the workforce. RHA chief executive Roger King revealed that the WTD is due to come into force on 23 March 2005—the first time a specific date has been given.
He told delegates that the implications of the WTD and the European directive on training could cost industry £4.2bn a year.