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At the moment we are supposed to do about a 40-hour week

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"At the moment we are supposed to do about a 40-hour week but it never works out that way," he said "It can go up to 48 hours and sometimes up to 60 It depends what duties the company have put you on. THE DIGITAL age starts today with the launch of BSkyB's digital satellite service of close to 200 television and music channels. Of course, I'd rather work a 40-hour week - if that's possible!". If they want you to work a few extra hours, then you don't really have any choice in the matter," he added.As he finished his shift at a bus depot in east London, Mr Mus, from Ilford, Essex, said: "I don't really know much about this subject, but a 48-hour week seems like a good idea. If I can't do more hours I will be in trouble because the basic money is terrible. I earn between pounds 13,000 and pounds 14,000 a year, which works out at about pounds 5 per hour. Luckily my wife has got a good job." He added: "I have heard about it [the directive] but I haven't read the letter I've been sent about it.

Many security workers need to work more than 48 hours, otherwise they will be struggling. "I'm not sure exactly how it will affect this company but I will make it clear that I need to do more than just the 48 hours on my contract.". DOUGLAS MUS, 28, drives buses in London for Stagecoach. As a transport worker he will not be affected by the directive but he feels a maximum 48-hour week would be welcomed by most of his colleagues - "as long as it pays the same. Of course there is a fine line between training and exploitation but it is nothing like as bad as it was ten years ago."If you work as a doctor and there are patients coming in all the time then you cannot just down tools at 5pm and go home."But many of them do feel that it is a job and that they should be able to hand over to someone at the end of the day but it doesn't work like that in practice."In certain branches of medicine you might be able to set up a 48-hour week but not in surgery," he said.KATE WATSON-SMYTH. TERRY PLATT works in London for Pinkerton, a security company that will be affected by the working time directive.

He says he will struggle financially if he is able to work only 48 hours a week. Mr Platt, 28, from Stepney Green, said: "I actually work 60-hour weeks although I'm only contracted to do 48 The extra time is to boost my money. DAVID ROSS is a surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital, London. He regularly works a 10 or 12 hour day but as a junior doctor is exempt from the Working Time Directive. "My day officially starts at 7.50am and just goes on until it finishes. One day a week I am on call overnight which adds a further 16 hours to the shift and once every three weeks I am on call from Friday morning until Monday morning followed by a normal day's work. "Yesterday was my afternoon off and I didn't finish until 7.30pm."But I think doctors have to be exempt from the working directive because you have to get the clinical experience when it's there and that will not necessarily fit into a nine to five daily routine."Many surgical traumas do happen late at night and if a young doctor is around then it is a chance to learn."He said there needed to be a system whereby doctors could build up their confidence without compromising their private lives but restricting them to a 48-hour week was not necessarily the answer."Medicine is an apprenticeship not a science and doctors need to put their theories into practice and if that means working long hours and seeing as many cases as possible then that is the only way to do it.

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