5 ms·

The EU has actual laws about things like paid time off, wages, and health-care though. Oh, and privacy, and human rights. And it has parliamentary systems tha

The EU has actual laws about things like paid time off, wages, and health-care though. Oh, and privacy, and human rights. And it has parliamentary systems that represent people more than the current American system. I agree with the article that we ought to be able to impose some useful minimums in the USA, just like in the EU.

troels 10y ago
Not that you're wrong, but this is just to remind you that the EU isn't a country. Especially worker-laws varies quite a bit between countries. Surprising perhaps, the nordic countries have very liberal worker-laws, compared to other european countries. For example, there is no minimum wage in Denmark, and most workers are more or less employed as fire-at-will.
- keevie 10y ago
  Important context for Denmark not having a minimum wage is the fact that more or less everyone (including managers) is in a union, and if you are fired you'll get paid unemployment that is not too far from your actual wages.
  - troels 10y ago
    Certainly. The nordic model is basically that the labour market is kept quite liberal, to the benefit of companies, but this is balanced by a strong social security net. This is in contrast to how things work in most of the rest of Europe, where there are strong laws in place that protects workers. The result is that it's much easier to start and run companies (and to fail in doing so) in the nordics.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  I know there are many systems in Europe, with many differences. Most of them are still better than what we've got in the United States, excepting maybe a few states that are known as "progressive" for having basic standards in line with the rest of the OECD. For instance, in Massachusetts, employers are required to give each full-time worker five sick-days off each year, we have a state-level health-care law so that MassHealth will still operate if/when the federal Obamacare system is repealed, and we raised the minimum wage to $11/hour. There is still no paid family-leave law, no minimum amount of holiday/PTO, and unions still have a hard time expanding here. For this, we're considered the most left-wing state in the Union, except maybe California. This is just plain silly.
  - true_religion 10y ago
    The US has a tightly constrained political spectrum. This means places like Arizona, and Texas are considered viciously rightwing (and utterly bigoted and racist if you listen to left-wing US blogs), simply because they want to protect their industries from non-citizens and perhaps deport non-citizens who illegally reside within their borders. To contrast, France opposes nearly every multinational who wants to a buy a local company with more than 50 workers, and for that it's still considered a silly left-wing EU state.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      Left versus right is about labor versus capital, not local versus national versus transnational.
lend000 10y ago
"...it has parliamentary systems that represent people more than the current American system." The EU is composed of seven major institutions, only one of which has direct representation by voters (the EU parliament), and the number of representatives of each country is roughly proportional to their size, so any given voter of a small EU country has effectively zero representation (not good). Not defending America where our unelected bureaucrats often have more control over citizen's lives than elected officials, but the EU is very far from a democratic, representative system.
- PaulHoule 10y ago
  Note the U.S. has survived 240 yrs including the existential crisis of the civil war as well as many lesser challenges. It's proven. The EU has been around for a much shorter time but it is in crisis now as much as it would like to deny it.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    The US and the EU were founded on very very different principals. The EU started as a trade agreement and when the EU was officially founded one of the founding principals was that it would never attempt to supersede or replace national sovereignty, which has clearly not been the case for the past decade if not longer. The EU also has fundamental flaws in it's institution and probably the worse monetary institution currently in existence which is the ECB. The EU needs to either scale back and go back to it's trade agreement roots or stop pretending it's not a quasi federation and just go on with it.
- rbehrends 10y ago
  > The EU is composed of seven major institutions, only one of which has direct representation by voters (the EU parliament), and the number of representatives of each country is roughly proportional to their size, so any given voter of a small EU country has effectively zero representation (not good). Not defending America where our unelected bureaucrats often have more control over citizen's lives than elected officials, but the EU is very far from a democratic, representative system. EU Parliament elections are actually not proportional; smaller member states get more MEPs per voter than larger member states. The interests of smaller member states are primarily protected in the Council of the EU, anyway, with its qualified majority voting; MEPs tend to vote along party lines these days. The "seven major institutions" is bit misleading, too, as then you'd also have to include the Fed, the GAO, and the Supreme Court for the US. Only the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, and the European Commission are involved in the actual lawmaking process within the EU. That said, I agree that the EU having a "parliamentary system that represents people more than the current American system" is at best a dubious claim. The EU's system is modeled after a parliamentary democracy, the US has a presidential system; arguing which type represents people more is about as productive as debating the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.
dogma1138 10y ago
EU law has very limited affect on PTO, wages and healthcare, in fact there is little to none. If the EU attempted to mandate wages and PTO it would be the end of the EU, you can't have the same wage in Estonia as you have in Germany or Norway or Denmark. There is no pan European legislation on any of the subjects you mentioned really besides privacy and human rights, and as far as human rights goes countries do have exemptions ;) Denmark for example opted out of the following EU principals: security and defence, citizenship and police and justice, as well as the Euroblock. This means that Denmark does not fully participates in the AFJS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_of_freedom,_security_and_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_of_freedom,_security_and_... The only real financial EU laws/policies are those for the Euroblock and a few that were defined in the Maastricht treaty and those in general are very vague like a country should not have a higher inflation by X% for 3 consecutive years than the average of the 3 worst performing members of the union and other such nonsense that isn't really acted upon when the shit hits the fan...
- rbehrends 10y ago
  > If the EU attempted to mandate wages and PTO it would be the end of the EU, you can't have the same wage in Estonia as you have in Germany or Norway or Denmark. Paid time off is regulated via the Working Time Directive, which sets minimum standards for paid leave (inter alia). You're largely correct about wages and healthcare, though, where the EU has only a very limited role.
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    The WTD has exemption that nearly all companies require workers to sign, primarily the 48 hour a week cap even if you don't work that much even Cisco, Amazon, Google and the rest force you to sign those opt outs. It's also not uniformly applied the as PTO requirements can count public holidays as paid leave and so most countries meet the 28 mandated days with ease, especially considering that the PTO requirements do not apply to contractors, temporary, part time and seasonal workers. As far as other things Article 153 specifically excludes wages and collective bargaining rights from any EU laws or directives.

troels 10y ago

Not that you're wrong, but this is just to remind you that the EU isn't a country. Especially worker-laws varies quite a bit between countries. Surprising perhaps, the nordic countries have very liberal worker-laws, compared to other european countries. For example, there is no minimum wage in Denmark, and most workers are more or less employed as fire-at-will.

keevie 10y ago
Important context for Denmark not having a minimum wage is the fact that more or less everyone (including managers) is in a union, and if you are fired you'll get paid unemployment that is not too far from your actual wages.
- troels 10y ago
  Certainly. The nordic model is basically that the labour market is kept quite liberal, to the benefit of companies, but this is balanced by a strong social security net. This is in contrast to how things work in most of the rest of Europe, where there are strong laws in place that protects workers. The result is that it's much easier to start and run companies (and to fail in doing so) in the nordics.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
I know there are many systems in Europe, with many differences. Most of them are still better than what we've got in the United States, excepting maybe a few states that are known as "progressive" for having basic standards in line with the rest of the OECD. For instance, in Massachusetts, employers are required to give each full-time worker five sick-days off each year, we have a state-level health-care law so that MassHealth will still operate if/when the federal Obamacare system is repealed, and we raised the minimum wage to $11/hour. There is still no paid family-leave law, no minimum amount of holiday/PTO, and unions still have a hard time expanding here. For this, we're considered the most left-wing state in the Union, except maybe California. This is just plain silly.
- true_religion 10y ago
  The US has a tightly constrained political spectrum. This means places like Arizona, and Texas are considered viciously rightwing (and utterly bigoted and racist if you listen to left-wing US blogs), simply because they want to protect their industries from non-citizens and perhaps deport non-citizens who illegally reside within their borders. To contrast, France opposes nearly every multinational who wants to a buy a local company with more than 50 workers, and for that it's still considered a silly left-wing EU state.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    Left versus right is about labor versus capital, not local versus national versus transnational.

lend000 10y ago

"...it has parliamentary systems that represent people more than the current American system." The EU is composed of seven major institutions, only one of which has direct representation by voters (the EU parliament), and the number of representatives of each country is roughly proportional to their size, so any given voter of a small EU country has effectively zero representation (not good). Not defending America where our unelected bureaucrats often have more control over citizen's lives than elected officials, but the EU is very far from a democratic, representative system.

PaulHoule 10y ago
Note the U.S. has survived 240 yrs including the existential crisis of the civil war as well as many lesser challenges. It's proven. The EU has been around for a much shorter time but it is in crisis now as much as it would like to deny it.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  The US and the EU were founded on very very different principals. The EU started as a trade agreement and when the EU was officially founded one of the founding principals was that it would never attempt to supersede or replace national sovereignty, which has clearly not been the case for the past decade if not longer. The EU also has fundamental flaws in it's institution and probably the worse monetary institution currently in existence which is the ECB. The EU needs to either scale back and go back to it's trade agreement roots or stop pretending it's not a quasi federation and just go on with it.
rbehrends 10y ago
> The EU is composed of seven major institutions, only one of which has direct representation by voters (the EU parliament), and the number of representatives of each country is roughly proportional to their size, so any given voter of a small EU country has effectively zero representation (not good). Not defending America where our unelected bureaucrats often have more control over citizen's lives than elected officials, but the EU is very far from a democratic, representative system. EU Parliament elections are actually not proportional; smaller member states get more MEPs per voter than larger member states. The interests of smaller member states are primarily protected in the Council of the EU, anyway, with its qualified majority voting; MEPs tend to vote along party lines these days. The "seven major institutions" is bit misleading, too, as then you'd also have to include the Fed, the GAO, and the Supreme Court for the US. Only the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, and the European Commission are involved in the actual lawmaking process within the EU. That said, I agree that the EU having a "parliamentary system that represents people more than the current American system" is at best a dubious claim. The EU's system is modeled after a parliamentary democracy, the US has a presidential system; arguing which type represents people more is about as productive as debating the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

dogma1138 10y ago

EU law has very limited affect on PTO, wages and healthcare, in fact there is little to none. If the EU attempted to mandate wages and PTO it would be the end of the EU, you can't have the same wage in Estonia as you have in Germany or Norway or Denmark. There is no pan European legislation on any of the subjects you mentioned really besides privacy and human rights, and as far as human rights goes countries do have exemptions ;) Denmark for example opted out of the following EU principals: security and defence, citizenship and police and justice, as well as the Euroblock. This means that Denmark does not fully participates in the AFJS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_of_freedom,_security_and_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_of_freedom,_security_and_... The only real financial EU laws/policies are those for the Euroblock and a few that were defined in the Maastricht treaty and those in general are very vague like a country should not have a higher inflation by X% for 3 consecutive years than the average of the 3 worst performing members of the union and other such nonsense that isn't really acted upon when the shit hits the fan...

rbehrends 10y ago
> If the EU attempted to mandate wages and PTO it would be the end of the EU, you can't have the same wage in Estonia as you have in Germany or Norway or Denmark. Paid time off is regulated via the Working Time Directive, which sets minimum standards for paid leave (inter alia). You're largely correct about wages and healthcare, though, where the EU has only a very limited role.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  The WTD has exemption that nearly all companies require workers to sign, primarily the 48 hour a week cap even if you don't work that much even Cisco, Amazon, Google and the rest force you to sign those opt outs. It's also not uniformly applied the as PTO requirements can count public holidays as paid leave and so most countries meet the 28 mandated days with ease, especially considering that the PTO requirements do not apply to contractors, temporary, part time and seasonal workers. As far as other things Article 153 specifically excludes wages and collective bargaining rights from any EU laws or directives.