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European Court of Justice: EU employers must track working time in detail

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Re: European Court of Justice: EU employers must track working time in detail

#11

Post by adwn »

pergadad wrote: post #10
adwn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For project budget and billing purposes, it is sufficient to track the number of hours each day. This court decision, however, would require to also track the start and end time, as well as the durations of all breaks. That's because there are laws regulating how much break time you have to take each day (dependend on how many hours you work) and also how much time has to pass between two work days. If you're working…

No idea why you're so bitter about this, but obviously there is no expectation that each minute is recorded. This just spreads a common practice to the exploitative employers that don't respect workers rights - such as the right to have a20 minute break during the day.

> obviously there is no expectation that each minute is recorded

Bingo! In practice, employees will just fill in whatever values are convenient. Nothing's going to change for an employee who was pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to work unpaid overtime – now they'll be pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to not track the time they're working after hours. It's just more bureaucracy for everyone, including for honest, fair employers.

And yes, I'm very bitter about this. Bureaucratic, ivory-tower decisions like this one are partly responsible for phenomenons like Brexit and the German AfD party, which in turn pose a danger to the prosperity and peace we enjoy in Europe.

Re: European Court of Justice: EU employers must track working time in detail

#12

Post by panpanna »

adwn wrote: post #11
pergadad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea why you're so bitter about this, but obviously there is no expectation that each minute is recorded. This just spreads a common practice to the exploitative employers that don't respect workers rights - such as the right to have a20 minute break during the day.

> obviously there is no expectation that each minute is recorded Bingo! In practice, employees will just fill in whatever values are convenient. Nothing's going to change for an employee who was pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to work unpaid overtime – now they'll be pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to not track the time they're working after hours. It's just more bureaucracy for everyone, including for hone…

Oh the "let's be sensible" argument...

Please do not follow this road. According to EU the main target of Russian disinformation campaign during current EU parlamentet elections is to spread the picture that EU is colapsing due to bureaucracy/corruption/incompetence/all power moving to Brussels/migration/Islam (select one depending on your target) while their country is solid as rock.

They have a ~1 billion Euro budget to spread that garbage this year. Please don't do their work for free.

Re: European Court of Justice: EU employers must track working time in detail

#13

Post by TomMarius »

panpanna wrote: post #12
adwn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> obviously there is no expectation that each minute is recorded Bingo! In practice, employees will just fill in whatever values are convenient. Nothing's going to change for an employee who was pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to work unpaid overtime – now they'll be pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to not track the time they're working after hours. It's just more bureaucracy for everyone, including for hone…

Oh the "let's be sensible" argument... Please do not follow this road. According to EU the main target of Russian disinformation campaign during current EU parlamentet elections is to spread the picture that EU is colapsing due to bureaucracy/corruption/incompetence/all power moving to Brussels/migration/Islam (select one depending on your target) while their country is solid as rock. They have a ~1 billion Euro budg…

So we can never argue about it because the russians might try to use it against us? I would rather know the EU has problems so I can get away in time.

Re: European Court of Justice: EU employers must track working time in detail

#14

Post by consp »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #7

> A German confederation of employers said that the ruling was tantamount to demanding a return to workers punching in and punching out on arrival and departure, calling this impractical given modern working practices, smartphones, home offices and the like. Not really in agreement with the ruling but that's a dumb argument. Tons of tech contractors bill by the hour where accurately tracking time is a financial requi…

True, And those same contractors do not take the hours worked off contract into account which by experience is combined always more than the stated work week hours. It's a cheap way to not deal with overtime.

Re: European Court of Justice: EU employers must track working time in detail

#15

Post by panpanna »

TomMarius wrote: post #13
panpanna wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh the "let's be sensible" argument... Please do not follow this road. According to EU the main target of Russian disinformation campaign during current EU parlamentet elections is to spread the picture that EU is colapsing due to bureaucracy/corruption/incompetence/all power moving to Brussels/migration/Islam (select one depending on your target) while their country is solid as rock. They have a ~1 billion Euro budg…

So we can never argue about it because the russians might try to use it against us? I would rather know the EU has problems so I can get away in time.

Not saying that.

But remember what I said next you see someone twisting a complex issue into "the sky is falling, why can't our politicians see it".

Re: European Court of Justice: EU employers must track working time in detail

#16

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

adwn wrote: post #11
pergadad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No idea why you're so bitter about this, but obviously there is no expectation that each minute is recorded. This just spreads a common practice to the exploitative employers that don't respect workers rights - such as the right to have a20 minute break during the day.

> obviously there is no expectation that each minute is recorded Bingo! In practice, employees will just fill in whatever values are convenient. Nothing's going to change for an employee who was pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to work unpaid overtime – now they'll be pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to not track the time they're working after hours. It's just more bureaucracy for everyone, including for hone…

> And yes, I'm very bitter about this. Bureaucratic, ivory-tower decisions like this one are partly responsible for phenomenons like Brexit and the German AfD party, which in turn pose a danger to the prosperity and peace we enjoy in Europe.

And yet time tracking most people want. This practice has 70% plus Support in Germany and Austria. From this I gather most workplaces are pretty horrible.

Re: European Court of Justice: EU employers must track working time in detail

#17

Post by JanSt »

I'm punching in and out every day at work / in the home office. Either on a terminal or in the web browser. Best thing ever, takes 15 seconds a day.

Being called at home (when not working) because of an emergency? At least 2 hours are added to my timesheet, even if I solve the problem in 5 minutes, so I only get called if it's really important. Adds a lot of sanity and stops abuse.

We are very productive because we actually get to relax from work.

Re: European Court of Justice: EU employers must track working time in detail

#18

Post by kriro »

ovi256 wrote: post #2

I suspect it's only a fraction of employees that work more than they're supposed to, but as they're workaholics that work a lot more, they move the mean and it has a big positive impact for employers. If this is true, this ruling is bound to have an impact on EU economic activity. And I don't see how it can be good, given that nobody's thinking that EU labor is too cheap. If it's applied at face value, it can only re…

One area were overworking is very common practice is academia. There is no time tracking at most German universities (interestingly, universities of applied sciences seem to have them). It would actually be a pretty huge shift in the academic workspace if time tracking was mandatory. I suspect that most research faculty easily work 50% or more on top of their regular load without pay. Especially in fields where it's common practice to hand out 20h/week positions with the implied expectation that you put in a full week workload.

Re: European Court of Justice: EU employers must track working time in detail

#19

Post by sonnyblarney »

JanSt wrote: post #17

I'm punching in and out every day at work / in the home office. Either on a terminal or in the web browser. Best thing ever, takes 15 seconds a day. Being called at home (when not working) because of an emergency? At least 2 hours are added to my timesheet, even if I solve the problem in 5 minutes, so I only get called if it's really important. Adds a lot of sanity and stops abuse. We are very productive because we a…

That's great, but would be a contravention this new law apparently.

The law doesn't want to know how much you bill or how much is allocated, but how much you actually work.

I the context of labour, surely it makes sense, but there, most hours are logged.

Outside of that it gets a little harder.

Re: European Court of Justice: EU employers must track working time in detail

#20

Post by sonnyblarney »

brador wrote: post #4
ovi256 wrote: post #2

I suspect it's only a fraction of employees that work more than they're supposed to, but as they're workaholics that work a lot more, they move the mean and it has a big positive impact for employers. If this is true, this ruling is bound to have an impact on EU economic activity. And I don't see how it can be good, given that nobody's thinking that EU labor is too cheap. If it's applied at face value, it can only re…

There’s more to life than productivity. The quality of life for EU citizens is high and getting higher.

"The quality of life for EU citizens is high and getting higher."

This is debatable, moreover, ostensibly the primary driver of that improved quality is actually productivity, though obviously there are other things.

EU excepting Norway/Switzerland/Lux etc. really does depend on productivity quite a lot.

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