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Federal workers who check their e-mail during shutdown will be breaking the law
- qwerta 13y agoWhat employment law in US says in case of forced unpaid holidays? In Europe worker must be given part of salary and an offer for termination (with bonus) within two months.
- tokenadult 13y agoIs that true of all employees in Europe? Is that true in every country in Europe?
- qwerta 13y agoShould be in EU. European Commission dictates some minimum in most laws. I guess there are exceptions such as contractors.
- kome 13y agoI lived in 3 different countries (Italy, France, Germany) and yes, this rule is everywhere. The details may change, but the core is the same. But I'm not not sure about those yankies up north in Britain :)
- kjjw 13y agoThere is such a law in the UK and it is based on a minumum number of weeks pay plus a week for each year worked. Something along those lines, anyway.
- kjjw 13y agoPretty sure there's an EU directive covering this but whether or not it is implemented into law in all member states, I don't know. That said I have a lot of friends across Europe and I can say that they all live in a country where effectively being made redundant invokes some minimum number of weeks of pay that must be given as a lump sum.
- golergka 13y agoRussia here. Not only this, but if you're terminated by the boss, you have to be paid triple your monthly salary as a compensation — remnant of the soviet social-oriented legislation. Of course, a lot of people (and almost everyone in IT) gets most of the salary off the books to save on taxes, and if the company wants to fire someone, it would offer him to resign and then find some violation that he committed if he won't (to fire him on this grounds), but the laws are still in place
- DanBC 13y agoI'd be interested to see what the English law is. I couldn't find anything immediately here, but I only looked for a short while. (https://www.gov.uk/browse/working https://www.gov.uk/browse/working) But the Citizen's Advice Bureau has some information here (http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/work_e/work_rights_at_work_e/basic_rights_at_work.htm#Lay_offs_and_short_time_working http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/work_e/work_rights_at_...)
- kjjw 13y agoHere's a useful link: https://www.gov.uk/redundant-your-rights/redundancy-pay https://www.gov.uk/redundant-your-rights/redundancy-pay So it seems that if you are temporarily unpaid or on reduced pay for 4 weeks in a row, or 6 weeks non-consecutively in a 13 week period, you can claim redundancy pay.
- furyg3 13y agoI am not sure what the EU-wide regulations are. In NL, employees are hired per term. Meaning you have a 6-12 month contract, and if the employer wants to lay you off or fire you, he has to pay out the rest of your contract. There are some exceptions of course (1 month period at the beginning where either party can terminate, gross negligence, stealing, absence, etc). After 3 years the employee and the employer have an 'indefinite' contract. This system means that if the employer needs to reorganize, it needs to do so with some government involvement (a sort of civil court which looks at the case). Usually the employee is compensated in some way... usually based on how long the employee has worked there and how bad the financial situation is at the company. "We have lots of cash on hand but our board of directors didn't approve the budget" wouldn't go over very well with the courts, I presume. The system has it's downsides (employers are cautious to hire), but it also means that you can't just fuck around with your finances and lay-off / furlough your employees because you don't feel like making important decisions. An employer can't just shift the financial burden of bad planning to the unemployment system.
- dreamdu5t 13y agoThat is... insane.
- yxhuvud 13y agoExactly how is enforcing agreements between employer and employee insane? Sure, there are some minimum numbers enforced by the governemnts, but the agreements tend to increase them.
- dreamdu5t 13y agoWhat's insane to me is that people aren't free to negotiate their own agreements...
- dingaling 13y agoNegotiated agreements aren't really 'agreements' when one party holds all the cards ( in the case of an employer, money the employee needs to live ). Hence legislation, which is basically a bigger party with even more cards imposing its will.
- hvs 13y agoThis is different because it isn't a forced unpaid holiday, this is the federal government unable to pay its employees until they have a budget. That said, employees will be paid retroactively once the gov't gets back to work.
- eli 13y agoThere's no guarantee that employees will be paid retroactively, it's just what happened last time. It takes an act of congress.
- danielweber 13y agoAnd there is a big difference between people who showed up to work during the shutdown and people who were told to stay home during the shutdown.
- hvs 13y agoTrue, I should've made that clear. But I wouldn't want to be the representative who voted against paying federal employees at the next election.
- eli 13y agoYou would think that, but who knows. I'm surprised by the number of DC-area Congressman who voted to shut down the government even though it puts their own constituents out of work.
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- workhere-io 13y agoIn Europe worker must be given part of salary As other people mentioned, employment laws vary a lot in Europe - and even within the EU there aren't uniform laws.
- VLM 13y agoAn acquaintance of mine who works for the feds as a very small cog in our central govt controlled economy, told me that its a strange novelty as an isolated topic, but the real story is how it interacts with other policies. It mostly affects people who violate the rules which theoretically separate work email from personal email (which is enforced to WIDELY varying levels based on dept, locale, and individual supervisor) and people who use work email as a backup authentication aka if you get locked out of google/facebook/whatever and have your work .gov/.mil email address as a backup authentication method, well, you don't have a backup authentication method right now.
- ababab 13y agoNot for the government, but I know some coworkers who do the same thing. Terrible idea to not completely decouple work and personal technology. There's no recovery process you couldn't achieve with a google, live, and yahoo account.
- VLM 13y agoWell, sure there's a recovery process you couldn't achieve with those three examples, there's having a fourth backup of using your work email. Its like a math proof trying to prove there exists a largest integer N, theres always N+1. I do agree that far too many people rely on precisely one backup, if they even have that many. There are peculiar catch 22 issues like I used to buy books from amazon and once they arrive decide if they're worth staying my property in which case I don't submit a reimbursement voucher or if they're not so good in which case I submit a reimbursement voucher. So technically I don't know if I'm doing personal or business purchasing until long after the transaction. Another weird corner case is related to health insurance which is tied to employer (if any) in the USA. So emailing an insurance company about health related topics using the work email seems appropriate until you can't use that email anymore even though you're still employed and insured there. Ditto retirement accounts. There are probably people out there with health insurance and retirement accounts who have no non-work related internet access... maybe if they're a forrester stationed in the middle of nowhere or an undercover cop who doesn't want to be caught talking about benefits with the FBI HR person on his personal iphone.
- ProblemFactory 13y agoCould someone more familiar with U.S. laws explain why is it mandatory for federal employees not to work, even if they are unpaid? I'd imagine there are people who would rather continue with their side projects, research or other fun parts of the job rather than sit at home.
- josephmosby 13y agoIf a federal employee is asked to do any work whatsoever by a supervisor when on furlough (i.e., not getting paid), the U.S. government could be sued for a violation of the 13th amendment. Making it illegal for federal employees to do any work whatsoever means that the government can place the charge back on an individual if they choose to work.
- eli 13y agoIANAL, but it's generally illegal for employers to permit employees to work without pay. The same way you can't legally "volunteer" to be paid less than minimum wage.
- vonmoltke 13y agoIt comes down to an opinion by Jimmy Carter's second Attorney General, Benjamin Civiletti[1]. The gist of his opinion, which I need to find a better link for, is that since Congress has sole authority over the budget it is illegal for the government to spend money that was not preauthorized because it undermines Congress' authority. Furthermore, he cited some obscure statute as the reason volunteering to perform normally paid functions would be illegal. [1] http://www.npr.org/2011/04/08/135247483/who-raised-the-stakes-in-government-shutdown http://www.npr.org/2011/04/08/135247483/who-raised-the-stake... Edit: His opinion was based on a strict interpretation of the Antideficiency Act[2], the key provisions of which are: The Antideficiency Act prohibits federal employees from * making or authorizing an expenditure from, or creating or authorizing an obligation under, any appropriation or fund in excess of the amount available in the appropriation or fund unless authorized by law. 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1)(A). * involving the government in any obligation to pay money before funds have been appropriated for that purpose, unless otherwise allowed by law. 31 U.S.C. § 1341(a)(1)(B). * accepting voluntary services for the United States, or employing personal services not authorized by law, except in cases of emergency involving the safety of human life or the protection of property. 31 U.S.C. § 1342. * making obligations or expenditures in excess of an apportionment or reapportionment, or in excess of the amount permitted by agency regulations. 31 U.S.C. § 1517(a). [2] http://www.gao.gov/legal/lawresources/antideficiencybackground.html http://www.gao.gov/legal/lawresources/antideficiencybackgrou...
- danielweber 13y ago"Hundred Year Old Law Doesn't Make Sense In Internet Age, Columnist Says"
- eli 13y agoI'm not sure it's the law's fault. The Federal government is not designed to work without a budget. In fact it's specifically designed to not work without a budget.
- IanCal 13y agoI think it sounds like a good idea. If you're not paying people, you shouldn't be allowed to ask them to work.
- eli 13y agoAgree, it makes sense. But it's a real bummer that you're not allowed to work even if you really, really want to. Say, for example, you're an NIH researcher being forced to pull the plug on a long-running experiment that you'll have to start over again from scratch.
- judk 13y agoThat should qualify as essential staff not furloughed
- Nick_C 13y agoWe've got a world-famous scientist speaking at a global conference over here. A few hours before he was due to speak he was told he could not, due to the furlough. It's crazy, because he's already here!
- IanCal 13y agoYes, it is really messed up, but it's the only way of stopping employers saying "You don't have to work, but if you really love your work you can continue". I think when it's the government, there should be major consequences if they can't pay their bills. It's absolutely insane that this is happening at all, and ludicrous when you consider why this is happening.
- tripzilch 13y agoHa, this scenario could be straight from Snow Crash!
- mmagin 13y agoIf you work for the government and you care about checking your work email when you're home, you're doing it wrong. :)
- rsync 13y agoI would be amazed if they even have email. Have you ever been on the phone with the IRS, or a state bureau or the treasury (or whatever) and in the normal course of conversation and workflow you suggest emailing them a document ... or using any reasonable workflow whatsoever ? The answer is not only "no", but "no, because I don't have email here". Absolutely stupefying.
- raganwald 13y agoLet me rephrase your story using HN-centric terms: You: "Hello IRS, I want to send you a sensitive document over an insecure channel that another department of government is hoovering up." IRS: "No." :-)
- rayiner 13y agoYou can't assume that e-mail is a reasonable work flow. It's reasonable for the IRS to have a policy of taxpayers not sending sensitive accounting documents to random employees' email accounts.
- dragonwriter 13y agoI've never had that experience, and every state and federal office I've worked in, or known people who have worked in, has email. They may also have procedures that limit what communication channels documents for particular uses can be received through that prohibits using email for certain functions, but they have email.
- mmagin 13y agoActually, I have family who recently retired from US government employment. They did have email, but the MS Exchange quota was ridiculously small, even though exchanging CAD drawings with contractors was very much part of their job. Also, things like Dropbox were blocked. I was amazed that this level of IT stupidity was possible until I learned that the IT people there didn't even report to the local management of their (fairly sizable) facility. No wonder they weren't required to actually help people get their jobs done.
- ChikkaChiChi 13y agoMy wife is an economist and she almost threw her monitor through the window after seeing government websites showing "This website is closed for the shutdown" instead of the normal, static data she needed.