4 ms·

I'm not familiar with Polish labour law, but it could be that in Poland like in many other European countries concepts such as "denying overtime" are inherently

by illuminati1911 6y ago

I'm not familiar with Polish labour law, but it could be that in Poland like in many other European countries concepts such as "denying overtime" are inherently illegal.

to11mtm 6y ago
> I'm not familiar with Polish labour law, but it could be that in Poland like in many other European countries concepts such as "denying overtime" are inherently illegal. Which explains why so many Ubisoft games are made in Canada...
- gambiting 6y ago
  No, the reason why so many Ubisoft games are made in Canada(and other studios as well, take a walk around central montreal, there's tonnes of games studios there) is that the Canadian government is giving out massive subsidies to the game industry to grow it there(last I've heard it's literally half of every salary - an absolutely ridiculous amount of money). If you compare the cost of having an employee in Canada to most other places, Canada works out pretty cheap, and it's an attractive place to move to and live in, without the ridiculousness of the American immigration.
  - astrange 6y ago
    I’ve always thought it was interesting that video games are the only kind of software that’s often made outside big tech hubs - not to mention the only kind an ordinary person enjoys using enough to emulate! Does Canada not subsidize other tech work? I’ve heard the pay at Blackberry was terrible for instance. The only good thing is that Canadians will be impressed if you call yourself a software engineer because they think you have an iron ring.
  - WorldMaker 6y ago
    Ubisoft, specifically, versus some of the other companies has the interesting added factor that with their upper-management being primarily based in France it is useful to them to utilize countries/provinces that can also speak French.
    - munk-a 6y ago
      Yea Ubisoft is a rather special case. And their montreal studios have actually long be lauded as a pretty good place to work if you're in the game industry.
xyzzyz 6y ago
This depend on the kind of legal relationship one has with the company. If you’re working as independent contractor with a B2B arrangement, the notion of overtime does not really exist. If however you are employed through the “employment contract” (“umowa o prace”), the limits on overtime are really strict, and you must be paid for it, in fact 50% extra, and double pay for overtime worked during nights, sundays and holidays. I don’t know what’s the typical arrangement in game industry, but in software engineering industry at large, B2B contracts are very common, due to rather preferable tax treatment. B2B gives 10-30% increase in net pay, and its downsides are lack of mandatory severance, mandatory time off days, overtime pay etc. In most scenarios these are not an issue, because if one can negotiate high pay justifying B2B, one can also negotiate time off and lack of overtime. Don’t know about game industry though.
- mic-kul 6y ago
  > If you’re working as independent contractor with a B2B arrangement, the notion of overtime does not really exist. That's correct. But if you're paid for an hour of work ("time & material") you will get paid for your "overtime".
mic-kul 6y ago
In Poland most of developers run own companies to pay linear income tax (19% flat) plus €350 a month for state pension instead of paying 18% tax for first €20k earned plus 32% for overages plus mostly hidden to employees installment for pension scheme. So when your cost to the employer is €100k a year: - under labour law you take home €5.7k per month - running a company you take home €7k per month For a country with a minimal wage of €610 this is a significant difference. Most of the companies will offer paid time off to contractors, end even companies offering high-paying jobs like pilots do in do the same: https://www.ft.com/content/b8f77f16-d865-11e8-ab8e-6be0dcf18713 https://www.ft.com/content/b8f77f16-d865-11e8-ab8e-6be0dcf18...
- trymas 6y ago
  > under labour law you take home €5.7k per month - running a company you take home €7k per month I dunno about Poland, but where I live this type of employment has some caveats: - You need save for your time off (holidays) yourself. - You save on social security taxes, but it means your salary is not compensated by it when you are ill (or your kids are ill and you need to take care of them), thus you need to save for this yourself. - I would like to say that you would need to save up more yourself for your retirement fund (as you pay less for state pension), but at these level of incomes, usually at both scenarios (self-employed vs being employed) you would like to do that, so it cancels out. Also it may be illegal, i.e. if you are employed like a full time employee - you cannot work as an independent consultant/contractor. Though AFAIK this definition of "like a full time employee" is not very strict. IMO problem is that income taxation should be treated (mostly) the same, no matter how you earn the money. Because now (where I live), the wealthier you are, the more elaborate schemes you can run to avoid paying taxes on your income.
  - kkarpkkarp 6y ago
    > Also it may be illegal, i.e. if you are employed like a full time employee - you cannot work as an independent consultant/contractor. Though AFAIK this definition of "like a full time employee" is not very strict. Polish here. It is like you described but a) not many people know about this (sometimes I surprise some guys telling them their employment form - independent contractor for one company where you are actually working full time - is illegal) and b) I've never heard of someone being caught practicing this.

I'm not familiar with Polish labour law, but it could be that in Poland like in many other European countries concepts such as "denying overtime" are inherently illegal.

to11mtm 6y ago

> I'm not familiar with Polish labour law, but it could be that in Poland like in many other European countries concepts such as "denying overtime" are inherently illegal. Which explains why so many Ubisoft games are made in Canada...

gambiting 6y ago
No, the reason why so many Ubisoft games are made in Canada(and other studios as well, take a walk around central montreal, there's tonnes of games studios there) is that the Canadian government is giving out massive subsidies to the game industry to grow it there(last I've heard it's literally half of every salary - an absolutely ridiculous amount of money). If you compare the cost of having an employee in Canada to most other places, Canada works out pretty cheap, and it's an attractive place to move to and live in, without the ridiculousness of the American immigration.
- astrange 6y ago
  I’ve always thought it was interesting that video games are the only kind of software that’s often made outside big tech hubs - not to mention the only kind an ordinary person enjoys using enough to emulate! Does Canada not subsidize other tech work? I’ve heard the pay at Blackberry was terrible for instance. The only good thing is that Canadians will be impressed if you call yourself a software engineer because they think you have an iron ring.
- WorldMaker 6y ago
  Ubisoft, specifically, versus some of the other companies has the interesting added factor that with their upper-management being primarily based in France it is useful to them to utilize countries/provinces that can also speak French.
  - munk-a 6y ago
    Yea Ubisoft is a rather special case. And their montreal studios have actually long be lauded as a pretty good place to work if you're in the game industry.

xyzzyz 6y ago

This depend on the kind of legal relationship one has with the company. If you’re working as independent contractor with a B2B arrangement, the notion of overtime does not really exist. If however you are employed through the “employment contract” (“umowa o prace”), the limits on overtime are really strict, and you must be paid for it, in fact 50% extra, and double pay for overtime worked during nights, sundays and holidays. I don’t know what’s the typical arrangement in game industry, but in software engineering industry at large, B2B contracts are very common, due to rather preferable tax treatment. B2B gives 10-30% increase in net pay, and its downsides are lack of mandatory severance, mandatory time off days, overtime pay etc. In most scenarios these are not an issue, because if one can negotiate high pay justifying B2B, one can also negotiate time off and lack of overtime. Don’t know about game industry though.

mic-kul 6y ago
> If you’re working as independent contractor with a B2B arrangement, the notion of overtime does not really exist. That's correct. But if you're paid for an hour of work ("time & material") you will get paid for your "overtime".

mic-kul 6y ago

In Poland most of developers run own companies to pay linear income tax (19% flat) plus €350 a month for state pension instead of paying 18% tax for first €20k earned plus 32% for overages plus mostly hidden to employees installment for pension scheme. So when your cost to the employer is €100k a year: - under labour law you take home €5.7k per month - running a company you take home €7k per month For a country with a minimal wage of €610 this is a significant difference. Most of the companies will offer paid time off to contractors, end even companies offering high-paying jobs like pilots do in do the same: https://www.ft.com/content/b8f77f16-d865-11e8-ab8e-6be0dcf18713 https://www.ft.com/content/b8f77f16-d865-11e8-ab8e-6be0dcf18...

trymas 6y ago
> under labour law you take home €5.7k per month - running a company you take home €7k per month I dunno about Poland, but where I live this type of employment has some caveats: - You need save for your time off (holidays) yourself. - You save on social security taxes, but it means your salary is not compensated by it when you are ill (or your kids are ill and you need to take care of them), thus you need to save for this yourself. - I would like to say that you would need to save up more yourself for your retirement fund (as you pay less for state pension), but at these level of incomes, usually at both scenarios (self-employed vs being employed) you would like to do that, so it cancels out. Also it may be illegal, i.e. if you are employed like a full time employee - you cannot work as an independent consultant/contractor. Though AFAIK this definition of "like a full time employee" is not very strict. IMO problem is that income taxation should be treated (mostly) the same, no matter how you earn the money. Because now (where I live), the wealthier you are, the more elaborate schemes you can run to avoid paying taxes on your income.
- kkarpkkarp 6y ago
  > Also it may be illegal, i.e. if you are employed like a full time employee - you cannot work as an independent consultant/contractor. Though AFAIK this definition of "like a full time employee" is not very strict. Polish here. It is like you described but a) not many people know about this (sometimes I surprise some guys telling them their employment form - independent contractor for one company where you are actually working full time - is illegal) and b) I've never heard of someone being caught practicing this.