Long working hours kill.

[KrazyHorse]

As if people want to work longer hours.

Don't you think adults should be allowed to make that choice for themselves without overpaid transnational legislators telling them what to do?

Nanny state

[MikeH]

Blatantly false.

My data is out of date.

We've improved.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Uh, yeah. As I said,

http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=ANHRS

I believe this is skewed by UK having a relatively large proportion of the part-time workforce comparing to the rest of the EU...

for full time workers I believe UK is about the top, probably not the most as some ex east european countries beat it in that category, but from the "developed" countries in Europe I think Brits work the most... and going by experience - definitely the case, even though it is anecdotal

[MikeH]

Don't you think adults should be allowed to make that choice for themselves without overpaid transnational legislators telling them what to do?

Nanny state

1. I think the opt out was a good thing.
2. Working longer hours is a fine choice, if you are getting paid for it.
3. Habitual unpaid overtime being expected, in jobs where there's no other benefit that might occur from your overtime (eg. bonus) is retarded and people deserve to be protected from it.

[MikeH]

I believe this is skewed by UK having a relatively large proportion of the part-time workforce comparing to the rest of the EU...

for full time workers I believe UK is about the top, probably not the most as some ex east european countries beat it in that category, but from the "developed" countries in Europe I think Brits work the most... and going by experience - definitely the case, even though it is anecdotal

[KrazyHorse]

3. Habitual unpaid overtime being expected, in jobs where there's no other benefit that might occur from your overtime (eg. bonus) is retarded and people deserve to be protected from it.

WTF? Are British people so stupid that they work longer than they have to when there is no possible upside to them?

[KrazyHorse]

This obviously still comes down to the idea that a legislator knows better than an individual what is good for the individual. Which is idiotic.

[The Mad Monk]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-12961179



Poor KH.

Poor ME!

[Wezil]

Does it work the other way too? Can those of us that work as little as possible expect to live nice long lives?

[MikeH]

I suppose the upside in this case is the lack of downsides for not doing it.

It used to happen all the time. There was huge peer pressure to work long ours and the implication was always that if you weren't doing them you'd be the first to go in redundancies and be overlooked in promotions if you didn't get in before the boss and leave after him. I find it hard to believe this doesn't exist in the US or elsewhere.

Nothing explicit, and you couldn't be fired for it exactly, but it was a definite issue. That culture still exists in places like The City, but in that case people get huge bonuses to compensate them so fair enough.

It's still a big issue in Computer Games programming. Because the jobs are in such high demand.

Sort of related to that issue from other day.

"Why should I employ you, if you'll only work the hours your paid, when I can employ someone else who'll work twice the hours for no more money?" is practically the same as "why should I employ you if someone will do the same job for less?"

Of course, the number of hours you happen to spend at work aren't necessarily directly proportional to your productivity. Which is why so many organisations are becoming more flexible in working hours. Plenty of much better ways of evaluating productivity than just measuring hours worked for many jobs.

[C0ckney]

wezil, man if that's true, then i'm going to live forever.

[Wezil]

You and me both dude. I billed a monstrous 32 hours last week.

[MikeH]

This obviously still comes down to the idea that a legislator knows better than an individual what is good for the individual. Which is idiotic.

It comes down to the idea that not every individual has the power to choose what is good for them without help from the legislator. The reality is that many people aren't highly educated and able to pick and choose their own terms of employment.

By the same token, why should employers have legislation governing safety rules? Shouldn't the employee be able to choose to work in an unsafe environment? You could argue, and I'm sure you will, that of course they should have that choice. Fine, but if you are in a situation where you have to take any job for any money in any working conditions this means you'll effectively be forced to "choose" to work for a pittance in a dangerous environment which of course at the start of the Victorian era was exactly what was happening. Combine the choice of the employer to allow people to 'choose' to work for less and less, and to 'choose' to work in unsafe environments and to 'choose' to work any length of hours and you soon end up back in the Victorian situation of young kids working 16 hour days in lethal sweat shops for a pittance with everything that brought with it.

If that's what you want to go back to...

[MikeH]

The whole idea of our representative democracies that we select representatives who represent our interests?

Thus, theoretically at least, a legislator directly knows what we think is best for us because we've let them know as we elected them. Or we've elected them because their proposed platform is what we think is best for us.

Saying the legislator doesn't know better than the individual misses the point that the individual selected the legislator.

[Wezil]

It's a nice theory.