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

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

#431

Post by jfk13 » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

Afton wrote: post #343

treis wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 don't think this comment deserves the downvotes it got even though I disagree. Consider your example: If you pay a tradesperson to 'do a job' you should expect that they will cut every corner available to them that isn't in the contract. If you are paying for time, you might expect them to do a more thorough job. Which is better depends on a number of factors.

The risk of paying for time is that the worker may deliberately (or even subconsciously) take longer than necessary to get things done.

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

#432

Post by chrisseaton » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

notreallytrue wrote: post #418

chrisseaton wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how it works.. and that's the law... because it's not reasonable for some people to not respond out of hours. Applies for ordinary people as well - such as soldiers and police who are liable for recall at any time.

> soldiers In my country they have 28 days of paid holidays every year Ant it's still one of the few jobs left where they can retire after 15 years, 6 months, one day of work > Police In my country they have 28 days of paid holidays, 35 hours a week contract In my country there are 1/10 of the homicides per 100 thousands people of the US

And (I presume, don't know what country you're in) they're both legally liable to be recalled from leave? That was my point - not what their retirement ages is.

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

#433

Post by GekkePrutser » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 7:48 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #422

GekkePrutser wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. If you formalise this kind of redundancy it leads to super annoying things like on-call rosters. Which are awful for a worker because it means you MUST be available immediately, can't drink or go out to the shop or whatever. I much rather just have them call me for that one critical issue that happens in a very long time, and appreciating me putting in the time after hours, than being forced to sit at hom…

I would demand to be paid if I was asked to be on call. On call to me means I’m working.

Yeah but I don't even want to have the pressure of being on call.

If you don't have on-call and you help out after hours everyone's appreciative. Might even get a small thank-you from the recognition portal for it, and "don't worry about that early meeting tomorrow, someone else will handle that". That kind of thing.

With on-call there's pressure all the time but it's not visible to anyone, and if you happen to be not immediately available everyone's angry. It's the total opposite in terms of experience.

So I try to be around when needed specifically to avoid having on-call commitments. As long as the occasional issue works out fine this way, nobody will bother setting up a formal on-call requirement. Most of my colleagues feel the same and it works out great. When shit hits the fan we're there anyway.

And the times I help out after hours... Plenty of times I'm not doing much during working hours, or have a personal things to do.. It's give and take. I love that flexibility.

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

#434

Post by GekkePrutser » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 7:49 PM UTC

notreallytrue wrote: post #398

GekkePrutser wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But fixing issues is something I enjoy :) And I can't hang out on the beach all day on my vacation, I get bored too quickly.

That's another thing entirely But being bored is part of the free time Boring is good, not bad Edit: I love it too, but when I'm bored I work on some side project (never completed one!) instead

For me it's not. Being bored makes me restless, unfulfilled.

It gives me a feeling of fulfillment if I can do a bit of work for 10 minutes and help people out.

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

#435

Post by MereInterest » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 7:50 PM UTC

nickff wrote: post #353

stainforth wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The destruction of unions in America was not for righteous reasons.

Previously-unionized industries declined in America, and new industries have been slow to unionize; I am not sure unions have been 'destroyed'.

So-called "Right to Work" laws mean that a union-negotiated contract may be made available to non-union members. At that point, the individually rational action is to leave the union, keep the dues, but benefit from the union's negotiation. As everybody does this, the union declines.

"At-will employment" laws mean that the burden of proof for the cause of firing is on the employee, rather than the employer. This gives free rein to employer's to fire workers considering unionizing, so long as there is the barest pretext of another cause. As forming a union becomes economically risky, unions decline, or fail to form in new industries.

Unions have been attacked in the US, through explicit policies meant to defund unions, and to prevent unions from forming.

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

#436

Post by GekkePrutser » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 7:53 PM UTC

minimuffins wrote: post #381

GekkePrutser wrote: post #356

I don't really need that. My work is my hobby and even before Corona things were intermixed completely. If someone pings me at 11pm from the US with a major issue and I have nothing better to do, Call of Duty can wait till tomorrow :P I like helping people and it helps relax my mind knowing that in the morning there hasn't been a major escalation building up over the last 8 hours. And they know I'm in Europe so they…

I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people who read Hacker News feel this way about their own jobs. But surely you can see this is necessarily a minority of the population. Necessarily, most people who are part or the world economy will not experience labor this way. It's a strange line of reasoning! Every time there's talk of reigning in employer surveillance, reducing working hours or generally speaking any…

Oh yes I agree. But the problem with this legislation (as introduced in France and Germany where a hard shutdown is imposed after hours with actual comms features disabled) is that it makes my way of working impossible (although usually us tech workers find a way to get an exception one way or another :) ).

Thus obviously I'm against legislation that restricts my desired way of life. As long as it's the choice of the worker it should be possible IMO.

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

#437

Post by lotsofpulp » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 7:53 PM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #433

lotsofpulp wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would demand to be paid if I was asked to be on call. On call to me means I’m working.

Yeah but I don't even want to have the pressure of being on call. If you don't have on-call and you help out after hours everyone's appreciative. Might even get a small thank-you from the recognition portal for it, and "don't worry about that early meeting tomorrow, someone else will handle that". That kind of thing. With on-call there's pressure all the time but it's not visible to anyone, and if you happen to be no…

I don’t even understand the label of on call. If you’re on call, you’re obligated to your employer. If you’re obligated to your employer, you should be getting paid.

If your employer wants to pay you for time that you spend at home doing non work stuff until they call, that’s up to them.

How is the pressure of “on call” any different than any other day at work? Unless you mean that your employer wants you to work 7 days a week, with 2 of them where you’re at home waiting to get a call. But then that issue is working 7 days a week.

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

#438

Post by auganov » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

tcldr wrote: post #209

OneGuy123 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an European I can tell you that Europeans feel completely disconnected from those EU politicians, they do whatever they please and there is no real input from anyone. The isolated themselves and then force countries into submission via monetary fines if they don't get in line.

That's exactly the line most of the press seem to tout – and it's that 'feeling' which has been exploited by those who see the EU as an obstacle to their regulatory goals or vision. The fact is that you get to vote for your MEP if you choose to, and they in turn for the commission. It's weird that on the one hand people say the EU "[does] whatever they please and there is no real input from anyone" and on the other h…

> and on the other have no idea about the EU parliamentary process. It is what you make it.

Yes. But the problem is people have a very hard time doing that. You cannot engage with EU level politics the same way you can in a real country. All these people speak different languages. Very hard to stay engaged when you have to listen to translations. You hardly ever get the kind of engaging coverage you would for domestic politics.

I know most of the politicians and parties in my country. I would easily recognize and have some opinion about most prominent congresspeople and senators in the US. Same goes for knesset members. Yet off top of my head I couldn't name you 10 EU MEPs. I know names of the biggest parties in the EU parliament but I couldn't tell you much about them.

Unless EU actually tries to establish a common culture and a common language, I don't see much changing.

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

#439

Post by GekkePrutser » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

bluntfang wrote: post #368

GekkePrutser wrote: post #356

I don't really need that. My work is my hobby and even before Corona things were intermixed completely. If someone pings me at 11pm from the US with a major issue and I have nothing better to do, Call of Duty can wait till tomorrow :P I like helping people and it helps relax my mind knowing that in the morning there hasn't been a major escalation building up over the last 8 hours. And they know I'm in Europe so they…

Totally agree that it should be a choice. Companies should choose to spend more for 24/7 on call by hiring more people. You, in turn, can choose to work for another company with flex hours while keeping your current position. Everybody wins.

But I really really don't want to be "on call". It's a terrible experience and it comes on top of normal work hours usually because the company also knows you're not doing anything.

So basically you have to work but are not doing anything but can't do whatever you feel like either. It's horrible.

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

#440

Post by GekkePrutser » Fri, Dec 04, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #437

GekkePrutser wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but I don't even want to have the pressure of being on call. If you don't have on-call and you help out after hours everyone's appreciative. Might even get a small thank-you from the recognition portal for it, and "don't worry about that early meeting tomorrow, someone else will handle that". That kind of thing. With on-call there's pressure all the time but it's not visible to anyone, and if you happen to be no…

I don’t even understand the label of on call. If you’re on call, you’re obligated to your employer. If you’re obligated to your employer, you should be getting paid. If your employer wants to pay you for time that you spend at home doing non work stuff until they call, that’s up to them. How is the pressure of “on call” any different than any other day at work? Unless you mean that your employer wants you to work 7 d…

This is not how it works in Europe. Usually you get some minimal stupid fee of say 50 euro per month for "being on call" (usually during one week per month or so) and you only get paid for the hours if something actually happens.

This is shit because the 50 bucks does not make up for the enormous loss of flexibility in your free time. Even if nothing happens your whole off-time for a week is restricted.