France, Italy and Spain have barred changes to EU working time rules because they set no date to end a UK opt-out from the 48-hour working week.
Ministers from the 25 EU countries were debating a proposal which would have cut the maximum hours people can work each week to 60, even after opting out. It only contained vague words about ending the opt-out in future.
But the lack of a deal means that a bid to exclude doctors' "inactive" on-call time from working hours has collapsed.
The BBC's Tim Franks in Brussels says all EU member states are finding that a big burden.
For Britain's National Health Service, government officials put the cost at around £200m (300m euros) a year.
Prosecutions
Employment Commissioner Vladimir Spidla said he would now start prosecuting countries that were in breach of the directive in its original form - because of their policies on doctors' on-call time, or for other reasons.
"We need to be logical... if a country does not respect the treaty we must bring proceedings against it," he said.
"We should move as fast as possible."
It is reported that only two member states are currently fully in compliance.
The UK, as the country which has fought hardest against the amended directive over the last two-and-a-half years, could be in the front line.
Opt-out row
The European working time directive guarantees workers at least four weeks' paid annual leave, a minimum period of 11 hours' rest every 24 hours, at least one day's rest per week, and a rest break if the working day is longer than six hours.
It also says night workers should work a maximum of eight hours, on average, in every 24, and entitles them to health assessments.
The UK has fought moves to end the opt-out, on the grounds that labour market flexibility promotes economic growth and lowers unemployment.
Five countries, including France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus argue that the opt-out is bad for workers' health, and gives the UK a competitive advantage.
In the past, many more countries have lined up against the UK's opt-out.
But at the meeting on Tuesday, most accepted a compromise put forward by Finland, the current holder of the EU presidency, which would have preserved the opt-out while placing some new restrictions on its use.
Finnish proposals
The Finnish proposals would have cut the absolute maximum working week - for people using the opt-out - from 78 hours to 60.
They would also have scheduled a review of the opt-out, with a view to its "gradual ending" at a later date.
There were reports before the meeting that the UK might have been prepared to accept the Finnish proposal if the absolute maximum working week had been set at 65 or 70 hours, and if there had been legal safeguards to prevent courts overturning the opt-out.
Some professions, such as company executives and emergency workers, would still have been exempt.
Under the Finnish suggestion, a worker's 48-hour working week would have been averaged out over a reference period of up to 12 months, with the precise period being set by national governments.
This would have enabled most employers operating in markets where there are seasonal peaks to avoid violations.
The maximum working week of 60 hours, for those making use of the opt-out, would have been averaged over three months.
Commenting on the failure of the
Social Affairs Council of the EU to agree today on plans to tighten up on
the use of opt-outs from the 48-hour week, TUC General Secretary Brendan
Barber said:
'This was a missed opportunity
to ensure that UK workers are properly protected against the dangers of
overwork. The trend in the UK is now towards a slow decline in long
hours working. New legal rights would have speeded up that process
without hitting economic success.
'Because the UK Government would
not support a compromise today to phase out the UK's opt-out it is now
likely to face legal action on the way that on-call time is treated in
UK law.
'But the government is not off
the hook. It is clear there is widespread ignorance of working time
rights, extensive employer abuse of the opt-out and precious little
enforcement of working time rules. The TUC will step up its campaign to
bring the UK into line with existing EU law.
'Although the legal approach is
not the only way to counter our long hours culture. We will continue to
work with government and employers to shift the culture of UK workplaces
and attack the poor productivity and work organisation that long hours
working covers up.'
The TUC's analysis of unpublished
findings from the Government's Labour Force Survey, published today showed
that removing the opt-out would have had little economic effect:
Only 800,000 to 1 million UK
employees would have had to make a serious change to their working
patterns if the opt-out was ended, but many of these work excessively
long hours with at least 130,000 regularly putting in more than 60 hours
a week.
The number of UK employees
working more than 48 hours has declined by 17.5 per cent since the 1998
peak of 4.0 million, 700,000 fewer employees are now working long hours.
The incidence of long hours
workers has declined in every industry, occupation and region, although
the pattern of improvement is very uneven, with some sectors doing much
better than others.
Because of the growth of some
jobs and industries there are more long hours workers in some of them,
but even here the proportion doing long hours has fallen.
Starting from a higher baseline,
the decline of long hours working has been much sharper in the private
sector.
A third of UK employees who work
more than 48 hours per week are only working one or two extra hours per
week.
Under the deal that failed today
up to a million UK employees would have continued to be exempt from the
48-hour limit. These are mostly 'autonomous workers' - largely senior
managers and professionals who genuinely control their own hours.
The deal also included
increasing the period for averaging the 48-hour limit from 17 weeks to
52 weeks. This would have excluded about 1.5 million UK long hours
workers from the coverage of the 48-hour week, since they do not sustain
their excessive working time over the full year.
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