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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

#301

Post by jodrellblank »

cdirkx wrote: post #13
troughway wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What does that even mean? Is the EU also going to come out with the "Right to breathe" and the "Right to go to the bathroom when you need to"? Have you seen amazon's warehouse work conditions?

Th right to breathe seems like something worth dying for.

That basically happened:

> The Clean Air Act 1956 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom enacted principally in response to London's Great Smog of 1952

> When the "Great Smog" fell over the city in December 1952 the effects were unprecedented: More than 4,000 people are thought to have died in the immediate aftermath,[4] raising public concern, with fog so thick it stopped trains, cars, and public events.[5] A further 8,000 died in following weeks and months.

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Air_Act_1956

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

#303

Post by rapsey »

fastball wrote: post #276
rapsey wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I said does not hold for everyone. It is dependent on location of the person, income, family situation, housing, etc.

Right, but maybe that's why a top-down approach like this is a bad one?

You mean the EU ruling? What is wrong with it?

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

#304

Post by justin_oaks »

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…

I agree that this should be an individual responsibility, but sadly it just won't work. If you're the only individual in your company who protects their private time, then you'll feel pressure to fall in line. Even if the boss doesn't give you any grief, your coworkers will: "I respond to emails after hours, so why doesn't he?"

The bosses will likely favor those who work more than they should. And often working longer is seen more favorably than working better. This is mainly because it's more visible.

I tend to think that salaried positions and unpaid overtime shouldn't exist. But I'm open to arguments in favor of them. I just have a hard time seeing how they help align incentives of the employer and the employee.

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

#305

Post by claudeganon »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #264
claudeganon wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Basically every state that has a semblance of worker protections is led by Democrats. They aren’t perfect, but the problem isn’t mostly Democrats, who at the federal level can’t get anything done without support from Republicans, who are far from making worker protections any part of their initiatives. It’s funny how federal government employees got paid parental leave though, but no legislation for non government em…

California is controlled top-to-bottom by Democrats and still has remarkably poor worker protections by the standard of any other developed country and is even worse when you compare things like the state of housing, poverty, and healthcare. They have tremendous latitude to make better conditions for workers and yet somehow this never pans out in California or other "blue" states. At what point do these excuses wear thin?

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

#306

Post by notkaiho »

Hamuko wrote: post #241
texasbigdata wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys unioned as a cross company group of 1 (or several closely related) functional roles? That’s super interesting! Do any entry level people NOT accept membership to the union or undercut in any way? Do you require your employee to be a “union” shop to work there? I think it’s beautiful your vacation hours are set out, etc. It seems like there could be some issues if every vertical had one of these (“oh no, the…

Joining an union in Finland is voluntary but most collective agreements are just that - collective. They apply whether or not you're in the union for the entire sector. I think most Finns belong to unions though.

Depends a bit on age groups but membership is still pretty high [0].

The collective point is critical - unions negotiate wages as part of a tripartite arrangement in Finland. It's industry-wide sets of wages.

[0] https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-9036556

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

#307

Post by pietrovismara »

olalonde wrote: post #258
pietrovismara wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Innovation made improvements in work conditions possible, protests and the following regulations made them real. I'm all-in for a 20h work week.

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

#308

Post by caskstrength »

donatj wrote: post #96
Blahah wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't a reasonable policy at all. If you are sick for weeks you have no vacation time. That's bad for everyone involved.

I'm pretty sure the people ITT are going to disagree with me, but vacation is a luxury, sick days are a necessity. If I missed weeks of work I wouldn't also take a vacation that year regardless.

>If I missed weeks of work I wouldn't also take a vacation that year regardless.

Why wouldn't you?

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

#309

Post by lotsofpulp »

refurb wrote: post #135
MereInterest wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I share your shock, and try to keep myself from feeling that the current situation in the US is either normal or ethical. To answer your question, yes, recovery from cancer would could from the pool of sick days in most places in the US. If the recovery takes more than the pool of sick days (7-9 days per year, somehow and perversely being different on average by seniority[0]), then all remaining recovery time is unpa…

At least for any job I've had in the US (middle class), one of your benefits is disability insurance (which the employer usually covers 100% of premiums) which pays you 60% of your salary if you can't work.

https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2015/disability-insurance-plans...

Only 1/3rd of non government employees have short term disability insurance. If you're a white collar office employee, you maybe have a 50% chance of having short term disability insurance, with the higher you get paid, the more likely you have it.

But for the people that need it the most, lower paid service workers, only 20% have it.

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

#310

Post by comprev »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #300
tzs wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I check email and sometimes answer when on vacation, because often 10 minutes spent addressing a small issue while I'm away prevents several days or a week or two of dealing with a huge issue when I get back. I'm the guy who if something messes up has to go through the databases trying to figure out what data is incorrect, and goes through logs and reports to try to infer what the data should be, and then figure out…

That's a management issue of having no redundancy for someone performing something so crucial. If you're that crucial to operations, then you should be paid extremely lavishly, or be the owner, otherwise you're getting the short end of the stick.

The bus factor is often the last thing considered
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