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Workers in Portugal could see healthier work-life balance under new labour laws
- zz865 5y agoJust a reminder that Portugal has some of the lowest wages in Europe, minimum wage is 600 Euro/month. Strict laws to protect workers is great until there are no evil employers left to employ anyone.
- sofixa 5y agoMedian salary is 11th worst in the EU: https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKMARK_DS-053406_QID_-78EC589D_UID_-3F171EB0&layout=TIME,C,X,0;GEO,L,Y,0;AGE,L,Z,0;SEX,L,Z,1;INDIC_IL,L,Z,2;UNIT,L,Z,3;INDICATORS,C,Z,4;&zSelection=DS-053406INDICATORS,OBS_FLAG;DS-053406SEX,T;DS-053406INDIC_IL,MED_E;DS-053406AGE,TOTAL;DS-053406UNIT,EUR;&rankName1=INDIC-IL_1_2_-1_2&rankName2=UNIT_1_2_-1_2&rankName3=AGE_1_2_-1_2&rankName4=INDICATORS_1_2_-1_2&rankName5=SEX_1_2_-1_2&rankName6=TIME_1_0_0_0&rankName7=GEO_1_2_0_1&sortR=ASC_2&sortC=ASC_-1_FIRST&rStp=&cStp=&rDCh=&cDCh=&rDM=true&cDM=true&footnes=false&empty=false&wai=false&time_mode=NONE&time_most_recent=false&lang=EN&cfo=%23%23%23%2C%23%23%23.%23%23%23&utm_source=pocket_mylist https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKM...
- wwtrv 5y agoHow do you even get this number? Even if I only count actual EU member (exclude Norway) that have numbers for 2020 Portugal ends up 15th, when Ireland and Italy publish their data it will be 17th. Also is this purchasing power adjusted? If not probably it’s even lower since East European countries tend to have lower cost of living.
- gruez 5y ago>Also is this purchasing power adjusted? presumably switching the units to "Purchasing power standard (PPS)" does this? If we do that, and use 2019 data (to get a more complete dataset), we find that portugal is 21 out of 32 countries (including non-EU countries, too lazy to exclude them, and excluding iceland and uk because they have no data).
- wwtrv 5y agoOh, I’m stupid.. it’s 11th worst counting from the bottom, rather than 11th highest.
- ssijak 5y ago600e minimum sounds good when you live in a country also in Europe where the average is 500e, and that average is fake because there are a lot unregistered workers working illegally for smaller amounts.
- HWR_14 5y agoFor those in the US, the quoted minimum wage is ~$4.35/hr
- downrightmike 5y agoJust under 600 euros a month, without public services or safety nets.
- HWR_14 5y agoI'm sorry, are you saying that Portugal's public services/safety nets are inferior to the US's? I don't know much about them, but I seem to recall that you provide free treatment to drug addicts instead of just throwing them in jail.
- downrightmike 5y agonope.
- galfarragem 5y ago"But the amendments to Portugal's labour laws have limits: they will not apply to companies with fewer than ten employees." I suspect the real problem is exactly here not on large companies.
- dfxm12 5y agoAs someone who has worked in many companies of various sizes, it's more manager dependent than size of the company dependant.
- mschuster91 5y ago> I suspect the real problem is exactly here not on large companies. Small companies usually can't risk burning out their staff - for large companies, churn is priced in everywhere, but a small company can easily run aground when the wrong employee leaves. This amendment targets precisely large companies who abuse churn to save money.
- KMnO4 5y agoIt’s not about “risking burning out the employees”. Small companies simply don’t have a chain of command and employees are taking on so many mission-critical things at once that employers need them to be constantly available. I worked at a startup as an engineer and was the most technical person at the company. My personal life was not respected by the CEO because I was the only one who could navigate the 2am calls with the overseas manufacturers. I ended up quitting my job because of that, but someone more desperate for work than me would have probably taken that abuse for a lot longer, at the detriment of their mental health.
- _xnmw 5y agoI say don’t make it illegal, but require it to be counted as paid overtime with a per-minute minimum wage.
- ape4 5y agoI guess Slack, Teams and all messaging apps will add a feature to queue up a message to be sent at exactly 9am (or whenever work starts)
- chadlavi 5y agoSlack already has that
- rjzzleep 5y agoI remember a person responding to slack messages at 2am not because she wanted to but because their boss was pressuring everyone to respond immediately, while telling people that they just make a choice not to respond outside of office hours. If you didn't respond in slack they would follow up with a WhatsApp message. Slack has now integrated message scheduling, but before that there used to be addons to do that. There is a big difference between you choosing to do something and a toxic startup culture where the boss thinks it's part of the grind and shames people when they're not onboard.
- screye 5y agoMan, I can't wait for that to be implemented. So often I want to ask a question to someone, but not disturb them in their off hours. It is not urgent enough to keep them up at night, it is urgent enough to me needing an answer the next morning. Emails have become too formal for most people now, so I don't like sending them unless absolutely necessary. This is especially true for those working across timezones or night owls like me. Now, my ADHD low working memory brain would love to queue these messages and forget about them. Rather than cluttering my todo list ( big no-no) or even worse keeping them in my head for an extra 12 hours. It seems to be trivial to implement and I am honestly surprised it isn't a feature already.
- babyblueblanket 5y agoI think slack has an option to send a message at a specific time, at least I've used it.
- 5y ago
- tyleo 5y agoI wonder if this includes sending slack messages or emails outside of work. I’ve personally never been _texted_ outside of work but I’ve received these other forms of communication. I’m also a US tech worker. Maybe texting outside work is more common in other countries or professions.
- toomuchtodo 5y agoOther countries (France, Italy, Slovakia, and now Portugal) outside the US are slowly implementing legislation to prohibit after hours contact to enforce work like balance and boundaries (because you can’t expect employers to do this out of the goodness of their hearts; they will extract as much as they can in jurisdictions without sufficient labor protections, speaking from high level macro observations). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_disconnect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_disconnect
- a0zU 5y agoOk?
- toomuchtodo 5y agoSimply providing context in regards to the second paragraph of the comment I replied to as an advocate for this sort of legislation and regulation.
- WaitWaitWha 5y agoThis may work as long as everyone is in the same timezone.
- rogerkirkness 5y agoIt's a low agency version of work/life balance that requires people to share the governments interpretation.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rightbyte 5y agoThis is just annoying for those with legitimate need to send messages. Like trying to solve sick leave vacancies or conveying practicalities.
- standardUser 5y agoIs it annoying? I don't think this article goes into enough depth to drawn any conclusions, let alone to conclude that the law was written to be as onerous as possible in common situations like these.
- mym1990 5y agoEveryone will try to justify their need to send messages as 'legitimate'. I imagine with this law that communication will become more proactive. If you need to solve a problem, do it earlier than later. If it is an emergency, than have an actual plan laid out.
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoWell, doctors and firefighters are legitimate. I can be similarly on call for data center duty. The problem is to well define those. But all in all, I don't mind my clients texting me after work hours. I just put my phone on mute.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ratww 5y agoThere is already a very simple solution to solve being "on call": pay the damn person for the hours they need to be ready to answer the phone. That's how Doctors and Firefighters (and developers!) do in places I lived. If I need to be sober or awake, or can't put my phone on mute... well, then I'm obviously on the clock. I also don't mind my company texting or calling for emergencies, but babysitting the system for free on PagerDuty like some SV companies ask to is incredibly stupid.
- 5y ago
- logicalmonster 5y agoWorkplaces not bugging employees after hours is a great rule of thumb, but blanket rules don't leave room for people to use their judgement to resolve (hopefully very rare) legitimate emergencies and problems.
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoI suppose there are exceptions in the law. I assume a doctor on call can be texted.
- mabub24 5y agoIt's probably tied to their actual work agreement/contract. If one of your explicit work requirements is to be on-call, then it's likely fine. That way employees can also argue that they should get paid for that time as well (and usually, on-call agreements also have compensation rules as well).
- Viliam1234 5y agoIf you can refuse the on-call agreement and still keep your job, then it is okay. Otherwise, it is an option for employers to take away their employees' free time as they wish. The cost of my time as an employee is not linear. Just because I am selling 8 hours of my time for X money, doesn't meant I would be happy to sell 16 hours for 2X money. And if I am taking a week of a vacation, it means I want to relax and walk somewhere in nature and be left alone. If you want someone available 365 days a year, hire two people.
- willvarfar 5y ago> Building a healthy remote working culture could also bring other benefits to Portugal, Mendes Godinho said, in the form of foreign remote workers seeking a change of scenery. > "We consider Portugal one of the best places in the world for these digital nomads and remote workers to choose to live in, we want to attract them to Portugal," she told the Web Summit audience. Portugal has form in this regard. If it sets out to do this at a national level, it will likely actually deliver. It has already succeeded in making itself a great place for other nationals to retire to, for example. Portugal has deliberately arranged its tax system to attract pensioners, and done big sales pushes. And it works. Lots of Swedish pensioners, for example, receive a Swedish state pension but spend that money in their new retirement home in Portugal.
- galfarragem 5y agoWelcome to Portugal! The country where nationals get one of the highest tax rates in Europe[0] and foreigners get a tax haven! [0] https://taxfoundation.org/personal-income-tax-rates-europe/ https://taxfoundation.org/personal-income-tax-rates-europe/
- nuerow 5y ago> (...) nationals get one of the highest tax rates in Europe[0] and foreigners get a tax haven! Why is this bad? If foreigners don't move to Portugal then they contribute zero in taxes and to the economy. If the Portuguese government convinces people to move to Portugal with tax benefits, they will pay taxes and spend their income in the local economy.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago> Why is this bad? It's great for Portuguese Treasury, Real Estate investors and the Hospitality Industry. But terrible for everyone else living in Portugal. Foreign buyers have driven the housing market well above the purchasing power of locals, who still have one of the lowest salaries in Europe specially when adjusted to cost of living. For perspective, Portuguese minimum wage is 600 euros with a mode at around 1k per month (pre-tax).
- nashashmi 5y agoWhat about the other way around? Employee texts boss?
- ratww 5y agoBut are there employees calling bosses after hours to ask them to do work? What happens if the boss doesn't obey the employee? The employee fires the boss and takes over the company?
- MrBuddyCasino 5y ago> The new rules are also good news for parents of young children. They now have the right to work from home without having to arrange it in advance with their employers, up until their child turns eight years old. Besides the usual complains about well-intentioned but badly implemented socialist policies and the disregard for 2nd order effects - this seems like a pretty heavy rule to impose?
- whatatita 5y agoWhat is there to implement? If you can work from home, you're permitted to do so. Employers will take some time to get up to grade, but at least now they have notice.
- arnvald 5y agoThere are a few other interesting things mentioned in the article: > Employers are also forbidden from monitoring their employees while they work at home. I'm wondering what that includes - any software that tracks mouse movement, applications used etc? Or is it limited in its scope? Anyway, sounds like a win and I hope other countries do that too. > However, a proposal to include the so-called "right to disconnect" - the legal right to switch off work-related messages and devices outside office hours - was rejected by Portuguese MPs. I don't understand this - so employer can't contact me but I can't disable my work phone? Sounds contradictory > [parents] now have the right to work from home without having to arrange it in advance with their employers Another win, though I'm wondering about the scope - who does it apply to? All office workers? Is there some definition of jobs where the work can be done remotely without limitations (e.g. having to use some machines available only at the work place)? > Companies must also now contribute to expenses that workers have incurred as a result of switching to remote working That's cool. I've seen companies already doing it in The Netherlands, but I don't know if it's regulated in any way, for now it seems companies come up with some arbitrary numbers between 40eur and 70eur a month. All in all, it's hard to say how some of these rules will be implemented and enforced, but I like the direction it's going. Portugal becomes one of top places to attract remote workers in Europe with it's low (for now) prices, friendly taxes, great climate and good level of English spoken in the cities.
- seszett 5y ago>> However, a proposal to include the so-called "right to disconnect" - the legal right to switch off work-related messages and devices outside office hours - was rejected by Portuguese MPs. > I don't understand this - so employer can't contact me but I can't disable my work phone? Sounds contradictory I was probably deemed unnecessary to write this down in law since the company is already forbidden to contact employees outside of work hours.
- libertine 5y agoNow we just need to be competitive enough to have decent wages. Else those remote works are just going to increase even more housing costs (both rent/real estate), and keep funneling cash to what has proven to be our greatest weakness: tourism.
- traveler01 5y agoThis shouldn't be an example to anyone. This isn't a real measure, wasn't thought or anything. This is a law made by politicians who are in campaign for the election in january.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- toast0 5y ago> This is a law made by politicians who are in campaign for the election in january. Isn't that all laws? The next election campaign starts the second once the current election results are final.
- themitigating 5y agoThose damn politicians helping people just so they get the votes.
- traveler01 5y agoDoes this really help anyone? Most of the laws this government made didn't help anyone, at all. They just make the people's lives worse with their "good intentions".
- xiphias2 5y ago''However, a proposal to include the so-called "right to disconnect" - the legal right to switch off work-related messages and devices outside office hours - was rejected by Portuguese MPs.'' Didn't we already had this right in EU?
- atticmanatee 5y agoYes, hence why a redundant law was rejected.
- throwawaybchr 5y agoI wonder if there are any advertising agencies in Portugal
- kache_ 5y agoWorklife balance laws will never work because there will always be uber competitive mad lads who will put in 12 hour days to get ahead. The only thing that will give you work life balance is leverage in the form of valuable skills that your organization cannot replace.
- standardUser 5y agoWork life balance laws like the 40 hour work week and paid family leave work just fine when implemented. There's dozens more examples.
- jl6 5y ago> However, a proposal to include the so-called "right to disconnect" - the legal right to switch off work-related messages and devices outside office hours - was rejected by Portuguese MPs. I genuinely don’t get this. It seems completely backwards. Surely your boss should have the right to contact you, but you should have the right not to answer until your working hours recommence? Is Portugal deciding that the very act of sending a message creates some kind of coercive pressure to work? If so, why did they decide against the “right to disconnect”?
- dsnr 5y agoThe problem as I see it is that it can put you at an unfair disadvantage to your team-mates who might choose to reply to your boss, or even do that "urgent thing" that your boss wants. Now you're suddenly the employee who chose not to "dedicate" extra 15 mins of your time to that "important" project. There should not be this kind of competition outside of working hours. Free time and family life should be protected.
- jl6 5y agoI don’t buy it. This law doesn’t prevent competition outside working hours. The employee who wants to be seen to go “above and beyond” doesn’t need a time-specific prompting message to decide to work an extra 15 minutes. The boss can easily make it known that those extra 15 minutes would be rewarded, either by dropping an email at 4:59pm, or using management clichés like “going the extra mile” and “taking one for the team”, or worse, manipulative non-verbal techniques that give advantage to in-groups and create barriers to out-groups.
- libertine 5y agoAs a portuguese, while this looks good on paper, it won't contribute whatsoever to our current situation. We're a country where the nationals earn like shit - probably one of the worst avg and median incomes in whole EU - and are choked to the brink of passing out by high taxes. Our political class is exchanging our young and bright over to foreign pensioners, and now apparently, foreign remote workers. Just so you understand the status quo: people were being pushed out of big cities for years, and now with remote work even more people are being pushed out of medium sized cities in the interior, because everyone wants to live in the country side or by the shore. We're fucked in every direction by high rents, high real-estate, high taxes, high energy costs, yet our incomes remain shit. In 20 years you'll probably see the news headline: "Workers in Portugal now must work until the age of 75 so they could see a healthier work-life balance under new labor laws!"
- sofixa 5y agoAs always, grass is always greener - by median income Portugal is 11th in the ascending order (11th worst). https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKMARK_DS-053406_QID_-78EC589D_UID_-3F171EB0&layout=TIME,C,X,0;GEO,L,Y,0;AGE,L,Z,0;SEX,L,Z,1;INDIC_IL,L,Z,2;UNIT,L,Z,3;INDICATORS,C,Z,4;&zSelection=DS-053406INDICATORS,OBS_FLAG;DS-053406SEX,T;DS-053406INDIC_IL,MED_E;DS-053406AGE,TOTAL;DS-053406UNIT,EUR;&rankName1=INDIC-IL_1_2_-1_2&rankName2=UNIT_1_2_-1_2&rankName3=AGE_1_2_-1_2&rankName4=INDICATORS_1_2_-1_2&rankName5=SEX_1_2_-1_2&rankName6=TIME_1_0_0_0&rankName7=GEO_1_2_0_1&sortR=ASC_2&sortC=ASC_-1_FIRST&rStp=&cStp=&rDCh=&cDCh=&rDM=true&cDM=true&footnes=false&empty=false&wai=false&time_mode=NONE&time_most_recent=false&lang=EN&cfo=%23%23%23%2C%23%23%23.%23%23%23&utm_source=pocket_mylist https://appsso.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/nui/show.do?query=BOOKM... It sounds like a good piece of legislation. The rest needs to be fixed of course but that shouldn't stop all positive change.
- vmception 5y agoSteep bell curve for everyone beneath them to be in eastern europe while Portugal is surrounded by or in close proximity to the highest percentile earners in Western Europe
- 5y ago
- PaywallBuster 5y agofrom boss: system is down to pingdom: system is down
- ahtihn 5y agoBeing on call is a thing and it should be compensated. Expecting employees to be on call 24/7/365 however should definitely not be a thing.
- PaywallBuster 5y agomany companies have informal on call, or just some kind of "support"
- forinti 5y agoMy admittedly brief experience of working with Portuguese is that they ask a lot of you but that you have the real option of saying no. If you fold, they'll skin you alive. If you stand your ground, you can have a nice life.
- pelasaco 5y agoI read the linked article with the feeling: "Ok, that's not for Portuguese. They want to attract remote workers, to live in Portugal, not to retain Portuguese people". Tom Bateman, isn't Portuguese. Less than 25% of Portuguese work force, worked from home during lockdown. This number will decrease, as soon as "covid is gone". Therefore I fail to see where this rules will help Portuguese people.
- adamcharnock 5y agoI've been living in Portugal for 3 years now. I'm from the UK, I'm not tax-exempt, I speak basic Portuguese, I live rurally in Central Portugal, I mostly socialise with other foreigners. I'm also a foreigner commenting on a diverse country into which I only have a narrow view. My experience may not be representative. Bearing all that in mind, here is a random collection of my experiences for those who are interested: EMPLOYMENT There isn't much work here for foreigners. Definitely not much skilled work, but there is occasional low-skilled manual work involving working on the land, construction etc. This kind of work is paid at about €6/hour. Many of the foreigners I know do remote work (language teaching, translation, graphical work). There also isn't much work here for locals, but with an additional spin. When I first arrived here the land I own was very overgrown and needed a lot of work done. I made a conscious effort to try to employ local young-ish people to help, but the work was very unreliable in a variety of ways (quality, reliability, people getting into fights and feuds). I've come to the rough conclusion that all the young locals who can leave this area have left (for the cities, or UK/France), and everyone who remains are those who could not leave for whatever reason. I don't blame them, especially as I know some of them were dealt a really crappy hand. The result is that as an employer it is hard to find good people. I know this doubly now as I have also started an ISP here. We go to the local startup accelerator and ask if there is anyone who we can hire to help us with marketing, and nothing. They've gone to Lisbon, improved their marketing skills, and not come back (because why would they) In the end we use something like UpWork and hire people in Lisbon/Porto to do the work for us. Thereby sending more money to the cities. BUSINESS I think there are an increasing number of businesses who's customers are 95% foreigners. I know a Portuguese guy who sells firewood who says as much. I run an ISP and it is definitely the case. LAND PRICES I'm broadly aware that land prices are going up around here. Foreigners that come here mostly want to live on land, outside the villages. Typically this land has not be maintained for a long time because the owners become old, decided to stop farming it, and open a shop in the village instead (as the previous owner of my land did). The locals generally prefer to live in the villages. Yes there will be overlap, but my intuition says that rural-land-prices and village-house-prices are not rising at the same rate. GENERAL ATTITUDES As long as you speak some Portuguese, the locals are happy to have you (at least from what I can tell). Be nice, be friendly, always help someone out if you can (even if you're busy), and it seems to be fine. Most of all, take care of the land. Many of the locals remember how the area looked 50 years ago and are sad to see it become an overgrown wilderness (esp in forest fire season). When I'm cleaning up the road-facing part of my land, every single person that comes past gives me a big smile and a thumbs up. Seeing those fruit trees producing again, rather than being full of brambles, starts to bring the area back to life. The older people seem to respect practical skills and actually doing the work. I think they have seen a generation of "druggards" (AFAIK, drug-taking drop-outs) not really contributing anything. So they respect people who come here and actually do the work themselves. LANGUAGE People under the age of 40 typically speak English as a second language, people over 40 (ish) typically speak French as a second language. When I first moved here it was normal to go into a shop/cafe etc and you would have to speak Portuguese (unlike Lisbon/Porto, where English is somewhat standard). That has been changing a bit over the last few years as more and more foreigners come to this area. Shops increasingly try to ensure they have someone on staff with good English. (no value judgement either way from me) Portuguese people will acknowledge that Portuguese is a very hard language, but they'll also point out that you can get free classes in the local city. I interpret this as, "It's hard, but you gotta at least try" FOREIGNER TYPES I see three kinds of foreigners moving to this area: retirees, hippies, and professionals. The last category is where I am, and it is the smallest category, but it is steadily growing. We typically move here with some remote/passive income stream and split our time between earning money and house building. The money we earn we funnel into building supplies, and also vehicles & equipment. FINAL CAVEAT I have experienced all of the above, but yeah, I've only lived here for a few years. I'm not saying anything of the above is universal at all, and I'm sure it isn't the entire picture.
- Proven 5y ago[dead]
- AussieWog93 5y agoImportant point from the article >Companies with more than 10 staff could face fines if they contact employees outside their contracted hours. Small businesses can and still will exploit their staff. We need to get over this whole myth of small business being good and big business being bad. The worst abuses of staff you will ever see happen under the watch of small business owners.