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

They are not liable if they don't go to work on their free time, ever.

Healthcare, public transportation, firemen, etc. they can't not provide the service, it's called (sorry the bad translation) "interruption of public service"

Yes, they can be re-called on duty, but it happens rarely.

They are payed extra time if that happens (sometimes the hourly pay is double of the regular one)

Soldiers can't even be sent on a war mission if they don't volunteer to it.

They usually do because the pay is astronomical (4-5 times the regular one, sometimes more)

But they are not supposed to.

They can still not show if they have reason: in this 2020 for example being COVID positive or simply sick.

It happened the opposite this year, many doctors and nurses volunteered to help.

They are employees of the State after all and they serve the public.

In the private sector you have to be compensated for working extra hours, if they don't, the employers are liable.

If they ask you to work on your free time, a judge could (and usually does) condemn the employer and the employee gets a compensation.

My parents worked for the national healthcare and when my mom was expecting me, she discovered she had a condition that caused two previous miscarriages.

My parents worked shift of 12 hours 5 days straight, they assumed it was too taxing on the body of a pregnant woman with a condition, so between me and my sister the hospital put her on paid sick leave for 36 months.

My country is Italy, our salaries are lower than countries like US where such protections don't exist, but at least we are protected from abuses (they still happen of course, but it's a risk for the employer)

One of the benefit of the system is that people know they have rights and will stand up for them

If you accept to work gratis in your free time, you're doing a disservice to the entire category.

Of course there are people abusing of these rights, but in general it's a good tradeoff that benefits the larger population instead of rewarding only the workaholics.

And don't even get me started on why being a workaholic society is bad for those who can't work more because they are not in good health or worse...

As others in the thread have pointed out, these types of arrangements don't always correspond to the reality of the business. If you are, for example, paid a yearly bonus, then the concept of "unpaid overtime" doesn't really apply.

But with reasonable amount of people, if you start with the full team at the beginning, you can assign different responsibilities to different people. For example, one can do database, one can do web API, one can do web design, one can do integration with other systems, one can build and maintain continuous integration; you can also divide the domain knowledge among multiple people. Each person can focus on doing their part in such way that the others do not need to understand every single detail, and only use the agreed API.

However, if you add a new person late in the project... all simple things were probably already done, and all difficult things require a lot of knowledge about the existing code, that other team members already know, but if they spend their time explaining it to the new member, then their own work gets slower, so the overall speed reduces. (And yes, given enough time, the new member would learn everything and become just as productive as the old members. But the thing is, there is not enough time left at that moment.)

In my case I've been diagnosed in the spectrum of autism, I know it's my problem if I get easily bored, not because I'm not checking my work email while I'm on holiday.

Is it hypothetical that a business that a retail business offers their employees lavish benefits and sells commodity products will be put out of business by lower prices from Walmart/Target/Amazon/Best Buy/etc?

Both of the above examples have happened, and capital flight is real. A few countries with better safety nets, who don't have a comparable emigration situation like in the US, does not mean that one of the two parties in the US is not trying at least a little bit.