Mr. John Clinton:

I would not accept that. If one examines the IBEC booklet on the idea behind annualised hours and their introduction, one will observe that in places where the use of overtime was endemic and people were working very long hours, there was a high sick leave record. When annualised hours programmes are introduced, we tend to see a drop in sick leave taken because people do not work as much. They have more time off and get used to the system. If we went out to our members today and asked them to return to an overtime system, they would not want to reverse the clock at all.