Some of the tired old arguments were trotted out in response, about scrapping the opt out being a restriction on workers’ freedom, or damaging to the UK’s job creation record, or undermining the efforts of hard working people to earn enough to look after their families. All of which miss the point.

It’s important to remember that the 48 hour limit isn’t a limit on ever working over 48 hours in a single week – it’s an average. You have to work very long hours (ten hours a day over a five day week) for a very long time (four months is the standard reference period) before you are protected by this measure.

The 48 hour limit was chosen because above 48 hours (over a long period of time), the health impacts kick in seriously. That was the issue that the last Tory Government challenged the original Working Time Directive on – they said it wasn’t a health and safety measure, and the European Court, along with their own scientific advisor, found that it most certainly WAS. There is no other workplace health and safety laws where it is possible to opt out – count them, none. Would it make sense in any other area? A speed limit that you could opt out of to provide freedom to get places faster? A chemical exposure limit where you could opt out if you particularly enjoyed the smell of toxic gases?

Are the opponents of scrapping the opt out REALLY concerned about the poor, hard-working people who can’t afford to feed, clothe or heat their families without working beyond 48 hours a week? Strangely, it was the same Tories who opposed the minimum wage when it was originally introduced who also opposed the working time directive. So they wanted people to work long hours for low wages – so caring! Many people who are forced to work over 48 hours a week get no extra pay for it at all – they’re not working long hours for more money, they’re working long hours for their bosses convenience. The solution to low pay is higher pay, not longer hours.

What about the argument that, as Peter Mandelson has put it, the opt out “is essential to Britain’s labour market flexibility that has helped to create an extra three million jobs over the past decade.” Note that he is not ACTUALLY claiming that the opt out has helped create three million jobs, because it certainly hasn’t. In reality, the opt out encourages a long hours culture which goes hand in hand with reduced productivity-per-hour (as people get more and more tired) and therefore has probably held the British economy back. Employers faced with having to reduce working time in Ireland, for example, improved productivity, making Ireland wealthier and its people happier.

The arguments for keeping the opt out are laughable.

Except that it’s no laughing matter for people who are being forced to work long hours without the protection of the law or adequate enforcement, and in fear that if they don’t do what their boss tells them to, they will get the sack.

So well done the MEPs who voted FOR people at work, FOR health and safety, FOR work-life balance, and AGAINST the opt-out.