News of the economic downturn has been slow to reach Strasbourg, one of the European parliament’s two homes. MEPs voted this week to end Britain’s opt-out from the European Union’s 48-hour maximum working week, apparently oblivious to what is happening in the workplace. Once again, the UK’s waiver is under threat.

The European parliament’s vote to remove the opt-out has been cast in some quarters as a heroic victory in a Titanic struggle between workers and bosses. Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress, has referred to MEPs’ courageous defiance of “the slave-drivers”, as though he were taking on the pharaohs of ancient Egypt. This wilful exaggeration leaves no scope to express concern when serious issues about working conditions are at stake. It also plays into a “them” and “us” mentality when businesses and their employees need to work together to preserve jobs.