Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DanBC | Hacker News Reader

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I tend to agree that European Working Times Directive was especially useful to protect low pay low skill (or semi-skilled) jobs such as factory work. Some fast food workers were expected to turn up for work, and when the restaurant wasn't busy they'd have to clock out, but stay in their waiting room until they got busy, when they'd have to clock in.

That's clearly abusive, and those workers needed protection.

If someone loves their job and wants to work 50 hours; or can work and enjoy the occasional 60 hours, well, it's their choice and they should be able to.

But most people do not enjoy that, and recognise it's not healthy, and do not want to do that, but are pressured either by bosses or by work culture. And so this flexibility has been removed because some companies were not self regulating.

60 hours a week is 10 hours a day, with one day off. That doesn't include travel time. Let's say 30 minutes each way. Does it include lunch hours? (UK: No, but tea breaks are paid). Let's call lunch another 30 minutes. That's 11.5 hours a day. 7 hours for sleep makes 18.5 hours a day. That leave 5.5 hours a day (plus that one day off) for everything else; your parents, your partner, your children, your friends, your bills etc, your life.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

What my country (Spain) labor legislation does, and I suspect many of the european ones, is not at all what you think it is, don't worry.

The law just allows workers, if they consider their rights to have been breached, to file a demand. It's somewhat complicated, because your employer, in principle, is still free to fire you when they want. In practice, employment here is and has always been, believe it or not, at will. What dismissal is not is "free as in beer": without a good cause (wrongful dismissal), they will have to pay you some quantity of money. With a good cause, it's disciplinary dismissal, which is free. That's true in all but a few cases, which protect you from wrongful dismissal. Say, you're the union's representative, or your son has cancer.

So you can demand to have your dismissal count as wrongful. You're still fired, but at least you get some extra money, including all extra hours, which have to be paid when demanded. If your employer threatens you with dismissal if you don't work 50 hours/week, then dismisses you, the judge could make it void and file a civil suit for threats, so there's still that protection.

But the catch is, no one can force you to enforce your rights. No one can demand your extra hours (any over the standard 40) be paid to you. Workers are still free to kill themselves on insane hours, if they want. In fact, because of ignorance of labor laws and fear of being fired, it's actually pretty common to do so.

Some fast food workers were expected to turn up for work, and when the restaurant wasn't busy they'd have to clock out, but stay in their waiting room until they got busy, when they'd have to clock in.

That counts as work under the EWT. Any time you have to be on the premises, counts as 'work' under the EWT Directive.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Before the EWT they were expected to do this, and were losing pay, and had little recourse.

The EWT comes in, and now they have legal protections.

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