I work for an airport services company, in a management position. I must say that whilst I am comfortable with the introduction of a 48 hour working week, there will be large numbers of my team who will not be. There are members of my team who always 'want' with absolutely no pressure from us to work many more than 48 hours per week, and who complain quite vociferously if they are not able/allowed to do so.
I agree that there must be protection against abuse, for example in my Company we make it clear that signing out of the 48 hour clause is definately voluntary, and any company that does not follow this should have action taken against them.
I realise that there is always an argument that higher basic wages would mean that staff would not have to work so much overtime, and this is true to an extent, although our Company has increased basic salary by between 12% and 30% over the last couple of years, and even those enjoying the larger increase are still very hungry for overtime.
I guess what I am saying is that we should protect the freedom of the staff to work more than 48 hours but have sufficient safeguards to ensure that they are not obliged to do so by their employers.