With three million employees in the UK working, on average, more than 48 hours per week, the chances are that you are one of the many employers based in Yorkshire employing staff on this basis.

Such workers may be fundamental to your business, enabling you to manage a flexible workforce to meet demand and to remain competitive. However, after much political wrangling in Europe, the odds of employers and employees being able to continue with these working arrangements are becoming increasingly slim.

At any time, this would be worrying news for businesses, but in the current economic climate it could not have come at a worse time. So what exactly is going on?

In 1998, in response to a European directive, the Working Time Regulations came into effect. In short, the law provides that a worker cannot work more than 48 hours on average per week – unless otherwise agreed in writing. This is an important proviso as it allows a UK employer to ask its employees to sign an agreement (commonly known as an "opt-out"), to work more than 48 hours per week.

The benefits to business of opt-outs are obvious, including significant flexibility with the workforce. However, for employees, too, there are significant tangible advantages, not least the valuable opportunity to boost earning power by working longer hours.

Essentially, at present, both employers and employees can decide how long they wish to work. If the employee does not wish to work more than 48 hours, he or she can refuse to sign an opt-out. Although employers cannot force employees to sign opt-outs, such agreements are now commonplace. For many businesses, the idea that they may become unlawful will be very unwelcome.

European ministers have previously proposed that opt-out agreements should give greater protection to employees with the introduction of a number of safeguards. These proposals failed to get off the starting blocks as agreement could not be reached between the member states. This resulted in years of stalemate. It looked like reform of working time would never be more than a federalist European dream.

However, just when it looked as though the arguments about working time opt-outs were dead and buried, they were brought sharply back into focus earlier this year.

In June 2008, European ministers decided once again to tackle the issue head on. This time, they decided to broach it in conjunction with the rights of agency workers, another European hot potato.

In short, the UK was offered a "deal" in which it would be allowed to retain the concept of the 48 hours opt-out (subject to certain conditions) in return for agreeing the terms of a new European Directive giving agency workers the right to equal treatment with permanent employees.

The conditions for the UK retaining opt-out provisions included:

Workers must renew their opt-out after a year (or less, if provided by national law) otherwise it will lapse.

Opt-outs will be void if signed at the same time as an employment contract or within four weeks of starting work.

No worker can work more than 60 hours a week averaged over three months unless permitted in certain designated agreements, including a collective agreement.

While there was no doubt that these conditions would require many employers to review existing work practices, they were certainly not fatal to opt-out agreements. In view of this, there was little surprise that the UK was quick to agree these safeguards.

In turn, this also meant the UK giving its agreement to new rights for agency workers. The terms of a directive dealing with agency workers were agreed relatively quickly, and this was recently passed by the European Parliament. We can expect it to become law in the UK within the next three years.

However, in November, in a direct challenge to the agreement brokered in June, a committee of the European Parliament voted to abolish the opt-out provisions completely within three years.

This is alarming news for UK businesses. There is no doubt that if this happened it would have a major, and potentially devastating, impact on working practices.

It would also be a bitter pill to swallow, given that the agreement reached on agency workers was partly on the basis that opt-out agreements would be safeguarded for the foreseeable future.

The European committee does not have the final say, however. The issue will now be debated by the European Parliament. This is expected to happen in mid-December. Final agreement must then be reached in the European Council.

For now, therefore, many Yorkshire businesses – like their nationwide counterparts – may wish to keep their fingers crossed that common sense
prevails and employers and employees are left, as at present, to decide what arrangements for working time best suit them.

Alan Chalmers, Head of Employment at DLA Piper's Sheffield office