5 ms·

I suspect it's only a fraction of employees that work more than they're supposed to, but as they're workaholics that work a lot more, they move the mean and it

by ovi256 7y ago

I suspect it's only a fraction of employees that work more than they're supposed to, but as they're workaholics that work a lot more, they move the mean and it has a big positive impact for employers. If this is true, this ruling is bound to have an impact on EU economic activity. And I don't see how it can be good, given that nobody's thinking that EU labor is too cheap. If it's applied at face value, it can only reduce worked hours at current costs, or have employers pay more for current output. Definitely can't increase EU labor competivity.

brador 7y ago
There’s more to life than productivity. The quality of life for EU citizens is high and getting higher.
- adwn 7y ago
  > The quality of life for EU citizens is high and getting higher. But not thanks to this court ruling. The only thing that will bring employers and employees is more bureaucracy. Employees which let themselves get exploited before, will let themselves get exploited with precise time tracking as well. After all, who's going to check whether you actually tracked the time you spent working after hours – answering e-mails, calling back a client, or fixing bugs in your code?
  - panpanna 7y ago
    Seems very reasonable to me, don't know why you call this bureaucracy: "The Court holds that, in the absence of a system enabling the duration of time worked each day by each worker to be measured, it is not possible to determine, objectively and reliably, either the number of hours worked and when that work was done, or the number of hours of overtime worked [...]" ALL places I have worked at have this in some way. Maybe not every day and maybe not always 100% correct but how else will they bill projects internally???
    - adwn 7y ago
      For project budget and billing purposes, it is sufficient to track the number of hours each day. This court decision, however, would require to also track the start and end time, as well as the durations of all breaks. That's because there are laws regulating how much break time you have to take each day (dependend on how many hours you work) and also how much time has to pass between two work days. If you're working from home, you'd have to track every little interruption in which you walk the dog, take your child to kindergarten, etc., otherwise your start and end time won't fit your billed hours. Of course, nobody will bother with such tedious timekeeping, and will instead just enter plausible but made up values for start and end times, rendering this court decision useless.
      - pergadad 7y ago
        No idea why you're so bitter about this, but obviously there is no expectation that each minute is recorded. This just spreads a common practice to the exploitative employers that don't respect workers rights - such as the right to have a20 minute break during the day.
        adwn 7y ago
        > obviously there is no expectation that each minute is recorded Bingo! In practice, employees will just fill in whatever values are convenient. Nothing's going to change for an employee who was pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to work unpaid overtime – now they'll be pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to not track the time they're working after hours. It's just more bureaucracy for everyone, including for honest, fair employers. And yes, I'm very bitter about this. Bureaucratic, ivory-tower decisions like this one are partly responsible for phenomenons like Brexit and the German AfD party, which in turn pose a danger to the prosperity and peace we enjoy in Europe.
        panpanna 7y ago
        Oh the "let's be sensible" argument... Please do not follow this road. According to EU the main target of Russian disinformation campaign during current EU parlamentet elections is to spread the picture that EU is colapsing due to bureaucracy/corruption/incompetence/all power moving to Brussels/migration/Islam (select one depending on your target) while their country is solid as rock. They have a ~1 billion Euro budget to spread that garbage this year. Please don't do their work for free.
- sonnyblarney 7y ago
  "The quality of life for EU citizens is high and getting higher." This is debatable, moreover, ostensibly the primary driver of that improved quality is actually productivity, though obviously there are other things. EU excepting Norway/Switzerland/Lux etc. really does depend on productivity quite a lot.
- 762236 7y ago
  Outside work the quality of life is good. But many people can't find employment in their field, which clobbers quality of life. I work few hours with great productivity --- would this new ruling make me have to increase my hours to keep my pay?
pergadad 7y ago
This is about labor rights. If you're paid for 40h your employer should not be able to press you to do more without compensation. Easy as that. If the added working time has much value they'll find a way to compensate. This way it simply means that you can't force a fastfood worker to do closing shift and then still clean after they've done their work. Outside of the pure "pair of hands" work there is a lot of evidence that more working time doesn't increase productivity. And, really, life is about more than just work. No need to allow companies to slowly erode the rights previous generations of workers have fought for.
- ovi256 7y ago
  Yes, there is clear tension between labor rights and labor competivity, that's clearly established.
- lima165 7y ago
  This is not about labour rights. In Spain at least, it is about the government making cash via labour taxes (as an employer, you must subtract a percentage from the employee's wage to pay for social security). As the taxes are so high, many employers resort to hire employees officially for 4-6h and under the table they pay them the remaining time free of taxes. Most companies here have less than 10 employees, they just can't cope with the high taxes, and the alternative is not hiring at all. Now this new law in Spain means nothing for employees. The govt just forces employers to have an accurate time log they can inspect at any time to make sure they are paying labour taxes. THEY WONT CHECK AT ALL THAT THE EMPLOYEES ARE BEING PAYED THAT NUMBER OF HOURS. Guess what, exactly 4h will appear for every employee in the log. There is no official approved system for time tracking, it's up to the employer, with even an excel being accepted, so it is absolutely manipulable by the employer.
kriro 7y ago
One area were overworking is very common practice is academia. There is no time tracking at most German universities (interestingly, universities of applied sciences seem to have them). It would actually be a pretty huge shift in the academic workspace if time tracking was mandatory. I suspect that most research faculty easily work 50% or more on top of their regular load without pay. Especially in fields where it's common practice to hand out 20h/week positions with the implied expectation that you put in a full week workload.

by ovi256 7y ago

brador 7y ago

There’s more to life than productivity. The quality of life for EU citizens is high and getting higher.

adwn 7y ago
> The quality of life for EU citizens is high and getting higher. But not thanks to this court ruling. The only thing that will bring employers and employees is more bureaucracy. Employees which let themselves get exploited before, will let themselves get exploited with precise time tracking as well. After all, who's going to check whether you actually tracked the time you spent working after hours – answering e-mails, calling back a client, or fixing bugs in your code?
- panpanna 7y ago
  Seems very reasonable to me, don't know why you call this bureaucracy: "The Court holds that, in the absence of a system enabling the duration of time worked each day by each worker to be measured, it is not possible to determine, objectively and reliably, either the number of hours worked and when that work was done, or the number of hours of overtime worked [...]" ALL places I have worked at have this in some way. Maybe not every day and maybe not always 100% correct but how else will they bill projects internally???
  - adwn 7y ago
    For project budget and billing purposes, it is sufficient to track the number of hours each day. This court decision, however, would require to also track the start and end time, as well as the durations of all breaks. That's because there are laws regulating how much break time you have to take each day (dependend on how many hours you work) and also how much time has to pass between two work days. If you're working from home, you'd have to track every little interruption in which you walk the dog, take your child to kindergarten, etc., otherwise your start and end time won't fit your billed hours. Of course, nobody will bother with such tedious timekeeping, and will instead just enter plausible but made up values for start and end times, rendering this court decision useless.
    - pergadad 7y ago
      No idea why you're so bitter about this, but obviously there is no expectation that each minute is recorded. This just spreads a common practice to the exploitative employers that don't respect workers rights - such as the right to have a20 minute break during the day.
      - adwn 7y ago
        > obviously there is no expectation that each minute is recorded Bingo! In practice, employees will just fill in whatever values are convenient. Nothing's going to change for an employee who was pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to work unpaid overtime – now they'll be pressured (explicitly or implicitly) to not track the time they're working after hours. It's just more bureaucracy for everyone, including for honest, fair employers. And yes, I'm very bitter about this. Bureaucratic, ivory-tower decisions like this one are partly responsible for phenomenons like Brexit and the German AfD party, which in turn pose a danger to the prosperity and peace we enjoy in Europe.
        panpanna 7y ago
        Oh the "let's be sensible" argument... Please do not follow this road. According to EU the main target of Russian disinformation campaign during current EU parlamentet elections is to spread the picture that EU is colapsing due to bureaucracy/corruption/incompetence/all power moving to Brussels/migration/Islam (select one depending on your target) while their country is solid as rock. They have a ~1 billion Euro budget to spread that garbage this year. Please don't do their work for free.
sonnyblarney 7y ago
"The quality of life for EU citizens is high and getting higher." This is debatable, moreover, ostensibly the primary driver of that improved quality is actually productivity, though obviously there are other things. EU excepting Norway/Switzerland/Lux etc. really does depend on productivity quite a lot.
762236 7y ago
Outside work the quality of life is good. But many people can't find employment in their field, which clobbers quality of life. I work few hours with great productivity --- would this new ruling make me have to increase my hours to keep my pay?

pergadad 7y ago

This is about labor rights. If you're paid for 40h your employer should not be able to press you to do more without compensation. Easy as that. If the added working time has much value they'll find a way to compensate. This way it simply means that you can't force a fastfood worker to do closing shift and then still clean after they've done their work. Outside of the pure "pair of hands" work there is a lot of evidence that more working time doesn't increase productivity. And, really, life is about more than just work. No need to allow companies to slowly erode the rights previous generations of workers have fought for.

ovi256 7y ago
Yes, there is clear tension between labor rights and labor competivity, that's clearly established.
lima165 7y ago
This is not about labour rights. In Spain at least, it is about the government making cash via labour taxes (as an employer, you must subtract a percentage from the employee's wage to pay for social security). As the taxes are so high, many employers resort to hire employees officially for 4-6h and under the table they pay them the remaining time free of taxes. Most companies here have less than 10 employees, they just can't cope with the high taxes, and the alternative is not hiring at all. Now this new law in Spain means nothing for employees. The govt just forces employers to have an accurate time log they can inspect at any time to make sure they are paying labour taxes. THEY WONT CHECK AT ALL THAT THE EMPLOYEES ARE BEING PAYED THAT NUMBER OF HOURS. Guess what, exactly 4h will appear for every employee in the log. There is no official approved system for time tracking, it's up to the employer, with even an excel being accepted, so it is absolutely manipulable by the employer.

kriro 7y ago

One area were overworking is very common practice is academia. There is no time tracking at most German universities (interestingly, universities of applied sciences seem to have them). It would actually be a pretty huge shift in the academic workspace if time tracking was mandatory. I suspect that most research faculty easily work 50% or more on top of their regular load without pay. Especially in fields where it's common practice to hand out 20h/week positions with the implied expectation that you put in a full week workload.