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EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

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Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#251

Post by Mauricebranagh »

Hamuko wrote: post #182
colejohnson66 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(in America) There’s no such this as “overtime” in most salaried jobs though. You’re paid just for being an employee, not for hours worked. Whether you work 35 or 60 hours, it’s the same pay.[a] As a result, employers don’t have to worry about overtime pay, only burnt out employees (but entry and junior levels are disposable, right? /s) [a]: This also leads to the employer expecting one to be “on call” 24/7 regardles…

> There’s no such this as “overtime” in most salaried jobs though. You’re paid just for being an employee, not for hours worked. If there's no concept of overtime in most salaried jobs, there's a problem with your country as well. I'm a salaried, full-time employee and I'm paid to work 37.5 hours a week, no more, no less. And the collective agreement for IT services industry (which is what concerns me as a developer)…

Wouldn't go down very well in UK M&P unions

I recall a delegate at my Union conference getting very upset at the thought that our members where such low grade / status employees

The Uk is possibly different that no fixed hours has a district class / social status.

Interesting to see a eu style agreemnet

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#252

Post by tdsamardzhiev »

bonestormii_ wrote: post #145
jusssi wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the difference between a junior and a senior. The latter has better expectations of what one can get done in an average workday, and the confidence to push back with "sorry, looks like this thing's more work than expected, going to need another two days for it". Btw. Looks like the Great America is woke and hates you for the word 'union' you used in your comment.

The "confidence" of senior people to push back is greatly enhanced by the fact that they won't be expediently fired for doing so. And even so, plenty of senior positions suffer from this situation as well. I'm living this hell right now.

The juniors won’t be fired either, but they don’t know that and usually get abused because of it.

If a company expects you to crunch, that means there’s too much work. If there’s too much work, it’s extremely unlikely that somebody doing a decent job would be fired.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#253

Post by antihero »

vfc1 wrote: post #106

You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. I can't see this soon enough, I have family that answer emails in vacation all the time, that get phone calls like its nothing. I know people that connect everyday from home to the office network to work one or two hours (extra) otherwise it's impossible to keep up with the workload. Most ma…

> The resolution comes just days after Germany's coalition government announced it is considering across-the-board tax breaks for individuals working from home.

Seems to run counter to another, more terrible idea:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54876526

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#254

Post by lotsofpulp »

brtkdotse wrote: post #201
MereInterest wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely agreed, and that sounds like a reasonable solution all around. Having a pool of sick days leads to the same situation, just with different circumstances. (e.g. Somebody who has a planned surgery for long-term health issues needing to save up sick days to use for the recovery.)

> Somebody who has a planned surgery for long-term health issues needing to save up sick days to use for the recovery I don't want to be "that guy" but Jeez Louise does this sound like total dystopia when viewed from the outside. What would happen if you didn't have sick days saved?

Nearly all lower income employees in the US don’t have sick days, or any paid time if they don’t come to work. If they aren’t working, they aren’t getting paid.

Additionally, they are not qualified for unemployment benefits if they are fired due to it being the employee’s fault they could not work.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#255

Post by mikem170 »

ghaff wrote: post #128
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a pretty sweeping generalization to think that the answer is either "yes" or "no". Of course some people will lie and cheat their way through life, so yes, some people will pretend to be sick in order to use up their X sick days. And yes, we could make it harder to cheat by making rules, such as always requiring a doctor's notice for sick days. Is the problem large enough that you need to prevent people from c…

Historically, when sick and vacation were more typically separate pools, the answer was definitely it depended. It's not hard to find studies showing that Mondays and Fridays saw a disproportionate number (i.e. not just 20%) of single day sick days. And, I'm sure, the pattern wasn't spread evenly across everyone. Personally, although I've fortunately had much need to take an appreciable number of sick days, I favor t…

At this point in the conversation I don't understand why any employee would want them to be separate. Doesn't that just work to the company's benefit? They want you to be there as many days as possible Why wouldn't you want all the sick+personal days to use as you see fit?

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#256

Post by claudeganon »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #236
claudeganon wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a bipartisan consensus that working people should be screwed. Uber's c-suite is staffed by Democratic Party insiders and they just got Prop 22 passed, Democratic leaders just came out in support of a stimulus bill that indemnifies companies against COVID-related harms they place their employees in to keep making money. You can find no shortage of well-paid liberals on this site that will tell you that unions…

I’m not denying that there are Democrats who support business over workers. All I said was that the Republican Party (in Congress) seems to believe that any and all is bad while Democrats believe in some or more (depending on how you feel). It also doesn’t help that people want to label everyone so much to fit into just two categories. Feinstein (D-CA) is very pro-surveillance while some of the party (in congress) be…

The beliefs of individual members of the Democratic Party are largely irrelevant compared to how they function collectively as a political body at both the state and national level. With that view, they've been definitively anti-worker since the Clinton era and have been shifting further and further right since Reagan's presidency.

The obstacle to change in this country is not the Republican party, but Democrats who use them as an excuse to mask their similar, steadfast allegiance to business interests at the expense of everyone besides white collar workers.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#257

Post by treis »

Symbiote wrote: post #225
treis wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you probably get paid 1/3 to 1/2 of what a developer in the US can make. The reality of the world is that if you're the lead developer for some product you will have times that you need to work off hours. Like if production is down how can you say: "My 40 hours is up this week, I'll look at it on Monday". It's a balance. You shouldn't routinely be working a ton of nights and weekends. But sometimes shit hits the…

Is the American developer happier in life than the Finn? Do they have time to enjoy all that extra money? The 40 hours is averaged over several weeks (normally). You can have an extra 3 hours, but leave work at lunchtime the next day.

The American developer can retire in 1/3 to 1/2 the time of the Finn. And yes, I'd say working a bit more for that is an obvious yes.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#258

Post by olalonde »

pietrovismara wrote: post #178
olalonde wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You got to admit that the EU at least has the courage to take some controversial measures in the best interest of their people. That's very debatable. It will probably have unintended consequences like lowering salaries, increasing the intensity of workload during permissible hours, outsourcing or entirely eliminating some types of jobs. Ultimately, it just reduces the pool of possible arrangements between employer…

> It will probably have unintended consequences like lowering salaries, increasing the intensity of workload during permissible hours, outsourcing or entirely eliminating some types of jobs. Ultimately, it just reduces the pool of possible arrangements between employers and employees. The exact same has been said for child labor abolition, reducing the work week to 40 hours, raising women wages and for literally ever…

Arguably, the bulk of improvement in work conditions came through technological development and productivity growth, not through regulations. Some of the best work conditions today are found in the largely unregulated (partly due to its global nature) software engineering job market. Also, why not go for 20 hours work week?

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#259

Post by theshrike79 »

treis wrote: post #204
Hamuko wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s no such this as “overtime” in most salaried jobs though. You’re paid just for being an employee, not for hours worked. If there's no concept of overtime in most salaried jobs, there's a problem with your country as well. I'm a salaried, full-time employee and I'm paid to work 37.5 hours a week, no more, no less. And the collective agreement for IT services industry (which is what concerns me as a developer)…

And you probably get paid 1/3 to 1/2 of what a developer in the US can make. The reality of the world is that if you're the lead developer for some product you will have times that you need to work off hours. Like if production is down how can you say: "My 40 hours is up this week, I'll look at it on Monday". It's a balance. You shouldn't routinely be working a ton of nights and weekends. But sometimes shit hits the…

If shit hits the fan, the company should be prepared to pay for it.

If not, then clearly the shit hasn't actually hit any fans and I can keep relaxing on my free time.

Many times companies and clients like to pretend there is an emergency that needs extra hours, but if there is a price tag attached, the urgency disappears really fast.

Overtime is a mutual contract in Finland. The employee can't just decide to do overtime for extra pay (usually 150-200% hourly rate), neither can the company order an employee to do overtime hours. Both agree how many hours are needed and what should be accomplished by working extra hours.

I can _voluntarily_ work longer hours and "bank" those, I'm also free to use my banked hours at a time of my choosing or be compensated for those hours with money. For example I can do 9 hours from monday to thursday and leave at noon on friday for a nice long afternoon/evening with my family.

Re: EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home

#260

Post by mikem170 »

pc86 wrote: post #109
mikem170 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people pretend to be sick to use up their X days? Many people want to have as many days off as they can. If so, you could be in the same situation, call in saying your sick to use all your days then really get sick at the end of the year. If the answer is no, perhaps that is due to cultural differences. It's my impression that folks in Norway are more responsible in many regards compared to Americans.

That's why it shouldn't be a pool. If you're sick, don't work. It shouldn't burn your vacation time to spend it in bed or throwing up in the bathroom.

Keeping them separate as you mention benefits the company for every day of sick time someone can't justify as a day off for something they'd like to do.

That doesn't make sense to me. It's better and more flexible to have 20 days to use as you want or need. let people roll over some of their unused time and everything is perfect.

It seems your way benefits the company and employees who can't manage their time.

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