EU pushes for 'right to disconnect' from work at home • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by lotsofpulp » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

tolbish wrote: post #136

MereInterest wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fine with that, so long as there is also a reasonable amount of vacation time. The US really needs to get with the times and have basic workers' rights. Currently, the average number of vacation days per year in the US (17 days), is less than the statutory minimum number of days in many countries. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/15/statista-how-far-behind-us-i...

Wait until you find out how many days per year the US mandates for parental leave. I'll save you the suspense. The number is zero.

Federal law in the US mandates 12 workweeks of unpaid leave to care for yourself or someone else if your employer has 50+ employees:

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fmla/faq

However, it doesn’t separate for yourself and someone else, so technically a mother could be on bed rest for 3 months and exhaust all of her leave.

A small number of states do mandate paid family leave (specifically to care for someone else which includes new parents), but they also usually stipulate minimum number of employees at businesses.

It definitely doesn’t behoove a young person interested in becoming a parent at some point to work at a startup or small business unless they explicitly offer paid parental leave as a benefit.

Part of the reason my wife and I moved to the state we did was so that she can get an extra two months of leave with her newborn, and so our daughter would be growing up in state that offered them at least that much in the future.

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

#282

Post by fastball » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

CommanderData wrote: post #206

aminozuur wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>"I think it's kinda self-evident that this would be the case?" I've owned a small company in the Netherlands that employed people. At times, we had to spent lots of money on accountants and lawyers, just to find out certain rules, restrictions, strange regulations. Not even implementing, this was just the cost we payed in energy, attention and money to understand it.

Good. Regulations exist for reasons. What is your point?

Is the reason "make business less efficient"?

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

#283

Post by theshrike79 » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:28 PM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #202

pc86 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that but how many people can get into a doctor the same day for the note? If they get sick on Monday you're potentially forcing someone to choose between unpaid time off, burning a day of PTO, or going into the doctor's office Wednesday or Thursday (if they're lucky) and saying "I feel find but had a cold Monday, can I get a note?" And how to juggle the logistics of that Wed/Thur doctor's visit with work? I…

> Not only that but how many people can get into a doctor the same day for the note? In Finland, where this same system exists, each urban neighborhood has its own local clinic that in large part exists just for this reason: someone feeling ill can call early in the morning, be seen a little later that morning, and get a note that they can show their employer the next day (or whenever they recover).

Also in Finland it doesn't need to be a doctor, just a nurse will do some times. (Depends on the employer).

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

#284

Post by ck425 » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

MereInterest wrote: post #15

CommanderData wrote: post #4

Love this. I've increasingly seen and heard employers trying to take advantage of the current situation and we need more regulation and protection for workers. People are being asked to do extra and too afraid to speak out especially with so many companies making redundancies. One area of focus for me is sickness and working from home. Sick days should be about rest and recovering both physically and mentally. Often…

Along the same lines on sick days, I think it should be forbidden for employers to merge vacation days and sick days into "PTO". Merging the pools gives an incentive for people to come to work while ill. For example, suppose somebody has 3 PTO days remaining for the year, and they are all earmarked for Christmas vacation with family. If that person catches the flu in early December, their options are (a) cancel Chris…

Huh, in which country is that a thing? I'm guessing US?

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

#285

Post by Hamuko » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

treis wrote: post #270

colejohnson66 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a balance. But the point GP is making (it seems) is that if “shit [does] hit the fan,” you should be paid overtime for it, not have it be part of your job. It’s a cultural difference really.

It doesn't really work because the incentives become misaligned. It becomes a good thing for workers to have things go wrong and for them to be inefficient with their time. Organizations end up much less flexible because they then don't trust their workers not to milk them. Ultimately it changes from paying someone to get a job done to paying them for hours worked. Anyone that's hired a plumber knows that you get far…

I get full pay for a sick day and I don't have a cap on sick days. And yet, I have not called in sick in the last two years.

Just because people could do something, doesn't mean that they will do it. The people at our company do not spend all of their time making the system more unreliable so that they'd be paid more to be on call. Hell, if you asked the developers, most of them would probably love to spend more time making the system more reliable, but the bosses usually want developers to add more features.

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

#286

Post by ingvul » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

mikem170 wrote: post #53

matsemann wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better: Sick days shouldn't be a pool at all. In Norway there's X amount of sick days one can use without any hassle (all paid), to use any more all you have to do is show a doctors note. If you have to use more than Y amount of days (chronic illness, a more serious thing or something), the government will temporarily take on the responsibility of paying the worker's wages. I don't think people should be punishe…

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.

> Do people pretend to be sick to use up their X days?

How would one ever know? And what's the issue if someone pretend to be sick if they have up to X days to "be sick". I don't mind at all what my coworkers do with their lives.

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

#287

Post by IAmNotAFix » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

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…

> it's impossible to keep up with the workload

I don't know about employees keeping up with their workload, but what I can say for sure is that the workload keeps up with how much the employee is willing to take.

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

#288

Post by j1elo » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

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…

> I have family that answer emails in vacation all the time, that get phone calls like its nothing.

But why are they doing that? I get it, a disrespectful boss could require employees to respond email or calls, and fixing that would require a shift in their mentality. But apart from that, I think it is not healthy at all the trend of having an ultra-connected setup with notifications enabled for everything, everywhere. Even if someone's workplace has a nice and respectful work culture, having their phone pinging them with work emails on a Saturday is just too much of an subconscious temptation for a lot of people.

I constantly try to convince everybody around me about the mental health improvements that brings something as simple as disabling background updates of all messaging systems we use day to day. Configuring email clients, WhatsApps, Messengers, etc. to only update when you actively open their apps. It was a game changer for me.

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

#289

Post by geodel » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:35 PM UTC

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)…

Don't know specifics about you. But officially/legally fixed hours comes with list of measurable tasks that must be completed by certain time. Now in most places I worked things invariably get delayed due to vendors, other teams, servers, network issues and so on. When issues are finally resolved one is expected to complete allocated task in 'extra' time. Saying that my 35 hours are over is not gonna cut in my experience. Even for highly demanded skills this kind fix hour negotiations is not possible for an individual employee or contractor.

Besides one can't really compare IT jobs in UK and USA. In UK they are generally at lower end of pay and reputation compare to US.

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

#290

Post by phone8675309 » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 5:36 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #279

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…

While I like the EU's effort, I have to wonder how much of this is the responsibility of the individual. > I have family that answer emails in vacation all the time, that get phone calls like its nothing. We certainly all know people like this. But, at what point should employees outright refuse to be connected to work on personal time? I get that people whom have families that depend on them have limited choice in h…

> For people such as myself, an engineer, where overwork and brown-nosing don't have a 1-to-1 relation with a bigger paycheck or greater job stability, they have more leverage over what their employer can or cannot do to them.

Cherish your current employer because they are the vast minority of employers.