6 ms·

Germany famously just passed legislation that forces employers to record working hours for all employees.

• netrus 3y ago
  The employer must not under-record the time worked - no one forces them to track the duration of breaks.
• darkwater 3y ago
  It must akin to the Spanish similar regulation I guess, but the idea is to force employers recognize and pay extra worked hours, not to spy on the employees.
• moooo99 3y ago
  That is a non-issue regarding privacy and the intention is to ensure compliance with employee protection laws capping the maximum weekly working time. You write down when you started working and you write down when you stop. Some employers automatically subtract your legally required break time, some want you to enter it manually.
  • notyourwork 3y ago
    Is there a concept equivalent to US, salary employee? If so what are they expected to work?
    • Swizec 3y ago
      (I’m from Europe, have lived in US the past 8 years) > Is there a concept equivalent to US, salary employee? Yes. It’s called full-time employee. This encompasses anyone and everyone who does not work as an independent contractor. > If so what are they expected to work? 40 hours per week. With mandated minimum lunch time and breaks, paid minimum vacation, paid medical leave, paid maternity/paternity, govt mandated lunch allowance, govt mandated transportation allowance based on commute distance, and many other “perks” that US companies use as negotiation tactics. If you work more than 40 hours per week, you can request overtime pay. Many employees waive the overtime thing for various reasons. In some industries because they’re exploited (restaurants and such), in other industries because they’re Mission Driven and want to work more (startups and such). The law is there to protect you, but in practiceit comes down to your relationship with your boss. edit: Personally, I don’t like this paternalistic/maternalistic attitude from either approach (as laws or as perks). Just pay me a shitload of money and let me figure out the rest. I’m old enough to buy my own lunch thank you.
      • majormajor 3y ago
        "Salary" or "exempt" in the US is a sub-status of "Full Time Employee". FTE in the US has much of the same of what you say - less, but still some protections, most significantly requirements around paying overtime, and paying more for it: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/overtime https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/overtime - "Unless exempt, employees covered by the Act must receive overtime pay for hours worked over 40 in a workweek at a rate not less than time and one-half their regular rates of pay." Salary = exempt = no overtime for you, sucker. Over time, more and more people have fallen under that category in the US. Is there something like that in the EU, where you don't have max hours or overtime eligibility at all?
        • Swizec 3y ago
          > where you don't have max hours or overtime eligibility at all? No, the EU is pretty strict about those things. Only way you can be ineligible for overtime is if you own the business. And even then you’re technically eligible, but I’ve never heard of anyone paying themselves overtime. In practice the “exempt” part happens in a grey area: The boss and the employee shake hands to “make things simpler” and write down 40h every week in whatever tracking thingy. Worked less than 40? Great, you get 40. Worked more? Great, you get 40. wink wink
          • eecc 3y ago
            Also contractors though. I got into a quarrel with the lowlife recruiter that tried to coax me into accepting going on pager duty. They had no room for negotiation, whatever the customer said was the deal. I left… but it must have cost them a fortune in productivity loss. Penny wise, pound foolish
        • realityking 3y ago
          There are some very limited cases where overtime doesn’t apply. For example, managing directors are outside the scope of most labor regulations as they’re not technically employees. At least in Germany, managerial employees (mostly defined through hiring and firing authority) are traditionally exempt though this might be in conflict with the relevant EU regulations. We’ll see. What I’m seeing commonly today is that your contracts will say the work week is 40 hours but x hours of overtime a month are already compensated.
    • phatfish 3y ago
      In the EU you should not be asked to work more that the maximum hours defined in the European Working Time Regulations. There is usually a range in these directives so member states can choose to go to the high or low end. But there is a range that has to be put into law for each country. Basically you shouldn't lose your job for refusing to work more hours than are defined in the regulations, if you do there is a tribunal process. But, if the employee is willing there are ways around it.
      • _puk 3y ago
        A lot of contracts I'm seeing nowadays include the opt out of this working time directive. They say you can opt in or out at any point by providing a written request to HR, but defaulting to opt out at the point when all the power is with the company (the candidate is signing the initial contract, and may not want to rock the boat) seems wrong IMO.
        • hef19898 3y ago
          Whether ypu opt in or out of recording hours (not sure if ypu actually can opt out, courts will propably decide that soon enough), you cannot opt out of the max working hour limits put in law. One of the exceptions being upper management, and in Germany, funny enough, doctors... The legal limit in Germany is 10 hours net, pkus whatever break time is applicable. One exception are mainly surveilling duties, e.g. monitoring security cameras, where the limit is 12 hours. One theoretical "work around" is declaring Saturdays normal working days, as they legally are. Those 10 hours are (used to be, not surw if that changed) calculated on the average of 5 days, by using Saturday as working day on which people are not working the average is calculated based on six days with one day adding 0 hours to tje total. Not sure if that was ever tried in court so. Disclaimer: The above applies to Germany. Fun fact: If employees violqte those limits, the line manager is liable personally. That liability includes fines, I know of one case where said fine was 10k Euro, and theoretically even jail time.
        • krageon 3y ago
          You cannot work contract your way around the law. Corporations still try to, even in the EU, but those sections can just be ignored by an employee.
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• lima 3y ago
  Very annoyingly so - it's a nightmare for anyone with flexible hours.
  • prmoustache 3y ago
    How so. It is not tied to office hours. I am bound to similar process being located in Spain and put my hours whenever they are. My job involve on-call shifts, work with people in different timezones and releases/maintenance out of regular office hours. It works just fine. The only thing that annoy me is the software my employer chose can only be accesed from inside the corporate network and do not provide a rest api. Otherwise I'd setup a large physical button with a led light connected to a pi zero so I can just hit it on starting and stopping my work.
  • lfkdev 3y ago
    Why? I can work wehnever I want and always do so. When i worked 50 instead of 40h i get overtime pay.
  • Levitz 3y ago
    How? I clock in when I start a work session and clock out when I finish it. It's really just that simple.
  • abwizz 3y ago
    it sure forces the issue that most ppl in white-colar jobs dont put in the contracted hours, because of reasons. which was and is fine, but now there is documented lying required, which creates mistrust and vulnerabilty.
• wkat4242 3y ago
  Spain too, unfortunately
• ralala 3y ago
  Actually this is a EU legislation, which forces all member countries to do so.