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ble to 'opt out' of the 48 hour working week in order to work longer hours. In contrast, France has passed more strict legislation, limiting the maximum working week to 35 hours'. 

The Working Time Directive is a piece of EU legislation designed to prevent damage to the health of workers through working excessive hours and ensuring they have sufficient breaks during the working day and appropriate days off. Self employed people and volunteers are exempt from the legislation.

This paper will look into the Working Time Directive as it affects both small business owners and employees.

2. Research Objectives

The objectives of the paper are to document the impact of the European Union Working Time Directive, and any significant changes and updates, and assess both the positive and negative impact on employers and employees in Small and Medium Enterprises (SME's). The directive has been in force in the UK since October, 1998 and a number of proposals have been tabled to amend it in the subsequent period.

3. Research Methodology

Background on SME's will be briefly looked at to identify the scope of the issues within the Small to Medium Enterprises in the UK and the magnitude of their collective effect on the UK economy. The overhead in ensuring a company is in compliance with the Working Time Directive will be investigated and the effect on SME's in particular, in the UK. In addition, the effects of the changes on employees in this sector to be analyzed, views of the unions will also be commented on, if appropriate as inputs.

The application of the opt-out by British companies in general will be analyzed, this is a vital element of the directive for SMEs and widely used by business in the United Kingdom.

As the directive was enacted 9 years ago, updates to the directive and the responses of UK SMEs and other companies will be studied.

4. Literature Review & Findings

Background on UK SME's

Soon after the enactment of the directive, Johan Fairhurst, a senior lecturer at the University of Huddersfield wrote the paper, The Working Time Directive: A Spanish Inquisition, 

He defined an SME as 'an employer with fewer than 250 workers. SMEs account for 99% of businesses and provide one third of all jobs within the EU - see Johnson (1998) p 231). Johnson reviews the impact of the Directive on SMEs within the UK. She concludes that ' ... the new legislation will increase staff costs for the SMEs ... However, those employees who are covered by the new proposals will enjoy the benefit of increased protection for their health and safety in a working environment, which is the very objective the legislation was designed to achieve' (Johnson 1998, p 237).'

At the time of writing, it was felt that there would be an increase in overheads for SME's but that the employees would enjoy improved protection in the workplace in regard to their working times and conditions. The overall purpose was to improve the work本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。