The European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF), to which the OGBL and its syndicate Transport sur Route & Navigation/ACAL belong, recently drew attention to a reform initiated by the European Commission concerning occasional bus services.

In fact, the European Commission wants to further liberalize the sector, to the detriment of drivers, passengers and other road users! In particular, they want to introduce the following reforms

• Less restrictions on the 12-day derogation: removing the obligation to take two weekly breaks after each 12-day period; extending the derogation to occasional domestic services; removing the single service condition.
• Splitting of daily breaks: introducing the possibility of splitting the mandatory 45-minute break into three 15-minute parts.
• Introduction of the possibility of postponing the daily break by up to 2 hours.

If implemented, this reform will lead to a massive deterioration in the working conditions of casual workers. The ETF will therefore continue to fight these proposals at European level. As a first step, the ETF has launched a survey addressed to the drivers concerned, in which you can take part by clicking on this link until 27 January: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfSHbsH8jvW2XkwqVl2LU2U0j2xRMaiPSCNioTvmbRYR4jNyA/viewform

Next, the ETF and its member syndicates – including the OGBL – will start putting pressure on European and national institutions to prevent the implementation of such a reform to the detriment of drivers!

Press release of the OGBL Road transport & Navigation/ACAL  Syndicate, January 20, 2023