Once again, we see a British government willing to weaken labour rights (UK to relax working-time rules as price of EU deal, 21 November). The existing directive already offers considerable flexibility, with an average 48-hour a week maximum over 11 weeks; recognition of emergency situations where usual rest times may not be possible; and the opportunity to negotiate agreements to vary terms. On-call work does present problems, but these have been resolved in many cases, so we should be learning from good practice rather than rushing to relax rules. After all, on-call time is about who is in control of your time: if you are at your place of work and expected to be ready at any moment, it can hardly be said you are off-duty.
The UK opt-out is widely used as a matter of course – many employers have staff members who work hours of unrecognised overtime and give an estimated £27.4bn of "free" work a year. Excessive hours also adversely affect productivity and are linked to an increased risk of accidents at work and high stress levels. The working time directive is a health and safety measure for good reasons. The government would do better to look at job creation rather than pushing people to work excessive hours.
Jean Lambert MEP
Green, London
• Workers in the UK already have the fewest employment rights in Europe, yet are now facing the possibility of even fewer. Against a background of falling real wages and Edwardian levels of income inequality, British workers can look forward to having to work longer hours, being sacked without notice and little or no recourse to a tribunal. The coalition's neoliberal outriders already have their eyes on scrapping the minimum wage, introducing more anti-union legislation and reducing holiday entitlements. If you don't or can't work, your punishment is forcible attendance on wasteful and ineffective back-to-work schemes or be "volunteered" into working for nothing for a charity or retail giant. Do we want an economy based on cheap labour living in perpetual fear and anxiety, or a society in which the national wealth is redirected away from those who live on its profits and back to those who create it?
Michael Banks
Edinburgh
• There is no justification for forced labour (Two months without pay - welcome to the new world of work experience, 17 November). These shelf-stackers are wishing to prove their employability, not slaves. Companies making healthy profits must be rotten to the core if their managers cannot see how unethical it is to exploit desperate young people. Can we have a full list of companies deploying these new forced labourers so I can make sure I do not spend any money with them until they start paying a fair wage?
Shelagh Young
Dunfermline