http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15816701 So there are now negotiations where the UK wants further opt out of the EU maximum working week. IMO this is nothing to do with the EU and an example of how their powers have over extended themselves. It's nothing to do with Spain, Germany or anyone else how many hours other countries work, what possible benefit is there to the EU? Having said that, I believe so long as there are unemployed people, working hours should be reduced and more people employed, but this is a matter for individual member states. It is rather typical of the UK to seak to remove a limit on this matter, while most other countries enjoy their time off, spending it with family, friends or pursuing hobbies and interests, UK businesses simply want the cheapest solution, at the expense of the employees.
How are UK employees meant to survive on reduced working hours, the cost of living being what it is here? Energy bills alone are due to rise sharply next year due to the cost of implementing all those lovely EU inspired, but government goldplated, so called green initiatives? Then of course there are the petrol price rises due in January.
Cost of living is driven by the amount of available money you have, this drives increased profits. How do you think people in other EU countries with lower avaerage wages, working less less hours survive?
Silly comparison. cost of living is also about available housing, inflation and dozens of other things. Housing in the UK is dreadful, less hours and less money would not make housing prices drop since there is a huge lack of housing.
EU demands 60 billion? No probs, Cameron can't hand it over quickly enough. But a tax on the banks or - gasp - the plebs not working til they drop as slaves should, oh no no no... Britain is paying the price for not destroying it's filthy rotten aristocracy in the 30s like most of the rest of Europe did.
In a few other threads, I have predicted earlier that the UK will become soon as lawless as the US is, concernng labor. This will happen even faster if the UK leaves the EU (hopefully never). We Americans do many smart things and many stupid things. Why is the UK (and other English speakers) so eager to select the stupid things and adapt them real fast?
Housing in the UK is part and parcel of the problem there. People were going crazy 10 years ago "my house value has increased 20% in the last 6 months". I heard this sooo many times. I tried to explain that it only serves banks, mortgage brokers, estate agents, people who have two ore more homes and the governments increased taxes, but oh no, all they saw were pound signs. And here were are again, judging the economic recovery by the exact same measure. We've all forgotten the situation where first time buyers had no chance to buy a house.
Correct. The UK refusing to legislate lower working hours (and therefore a higher quality of life) is due to the simplistic view that this is cheaper for the companies. Again placing companies and profits before the welbeing of its citizens. I'm flabbergasted that no one in the political sector has asked the simple question "How do the Dutch* manage to have 4% unemployment, a better standard of living, happier people and a working economy?". * Apply to Sweden, Germany, Finland etc...
Perhaps it is just me, but the EU seems to be becoming more and more like communism- with its all-pervassive regulations over every aspect of society.
Thank God I live in a Country where Government can't force me to give up my hours and my job to someone else. I mean really, that is just tyrannical that you think that a productive, willing worker should be forced by Government to take less hours so someone else can have a job. (*)(*)(*)(*) them You know what I do when I first start a new job? I identify the weakest link on the team, eliminate them and take thier hours for myself. It's called competition, maybe you should try it sometime instead of being scared of it.
All those third-world migrants (and their children) will need a job too, if they are to be properly integrated, and there just will not be enough jobs to go around. Sacrifices will have to be made!
The availability of money has a huge effect. However, I don't believe it's the government's (or the EU's place) to dictate my work/life balance. I want to do a bit more than survive. I want to be able to prosper under an independent, low tax, libertarian government. That would improve my quality of life no end.
Still better than nationalism/racism. The EU does put new division lines across Europe though. It remains to be seen if these new division lines can become more bearable than the ones we have today (as a legacy of the french revolution/crime+ww1-2).
I agree, but you still end up with a better work/life balance this way than in an American style unregulated robber baron capitalism. Prosperity and quality of life are relative to statistical economic pointers that are more volatile than the worst primadonna of a business customer.
I see youre still fixated by the idea that the only options are the EU or the US way. Either way, who are you, or indeed any politician or EU bureaucrat, to decide what my work/life balance should be? Of course, but Im not sure if youre making a point in saying that or not.
There would not be any racism if the western european countries had not taken on so many migrants. What you will never be willing to see is that diversity is the real cause of racism. It is a natural and inevitible reaction to deteriorating social and economic conditions. More diversity will only reduce social cohession. Of course the EU wants more diversity to weaken national identities, to open the way for more unification. In a Europe where the ethnic and cultural composition is already fragmented within each nation, there is less reason not to integrate with other nations. Or so the reasoning goes.
I can't help being fixated because I can't imagine an alternative, neither have I heard of one or understood one. Maybe I am the statistics. I don't understand how it is in the control of any individual what her/his work/life balance is. I may be wrong, but I have no better idea than that the work/life balance is defied by the interaction between market conditions and union organization. I am not a union member, but sure, if you make a deal that the union lets you work 24/7 (or there is no union), the corporation/market will demand every worker to do the same. So, who defines THEIR work/life balance then? Themselves?
I sooo agree with this. By the way I love every word in this post, because this way, finally, western Europe will obtain the same ethnic scatter mess as the Balkans have been having for 500 years. That way, Western Europe will not be able to create and maintain divisive borders any more, and will not be able to start wars and ethnic conflict any more either. I am personally not related to the Balkans, I am a white American, but it is high time that Western Europe pays for its 20th century crimes. And it is exactly the ethnic fragmentation of Western Europe that is the most appropriate payment. Hence the EU and its inviting immigration policy is a good thing and the EU can't do it fast enough, in my humble opinion. It makes me happy to see that criminals are put down with their own medicine. Let me elaborate: for example the EU should outlaw that a few member countries such as Holland and France demand that immigrants learn Duch/French.
The children of your children will grow up in poverty. Your female descendants will be raped. Just look at Pakistan or the slums in Mexico to see where your country is headed. And even with all this diversity there will still never be equality. Show me one racially diverse country that is egalitarian. There is none, never was, and never will be. Think I am exaggerating? 1 out of 10 Norwegian young women in the capital city have already been raped. Between 2005 to 2010, not a single one of the rapes were comitted by ethnic Norwegian men! You wanting Western Europe to go the way of the Balkans, to punish them for the crimes of their ancestors, would be like me hoping your female descendants will get brutally raped by black men, which would only be fitting to your reply in this thread. Your country will be taken over by hispanics that breed out of control and steal anything that is not bolted down. But at least they do not rape like the muslims in western europe.
I know nothing about muslim law, but I bet rape is heavily punished in every comunity's laws because it destroys the fabric of the community. An effective way to combat muslim rapists would be to make the muslim community's immigration flow dependent on the community itself capturing the rapists. Of cause there is no egalitarian country. But then, the western European countries should have thought of that when they destroyed east Europe starting with the ww1 peace dictates and repeating it for 100 years. Simply, western Europeans don't have the eucation or the intelligence to relize that they may have the big guns today, but the big guns always gome and go. I guess they are going now. We Americans are at least a little better, because at least on paper we have things like political correctness, electoral college, and Spanish-English dual language government forms even if we don't reverse Guadalupe-Hidalgo. But what do you western Europeans have? A debate whether France should allow the Occitan language, or a financial trick to give the Euro to a weak Balkan country such as Slovakia only to continue your 100 year long crimes? I think I will have to laugh.
Thank you for your concern, but you're not required, as a white American living in continental Europe, to think of an alternative, so your not having heard of one (though you might have looked at the many alternatives around the world) is not of the slightest concern to me. I never said there should be NO labour laws at all. The question of working "24/7" never even crossed my mind. I'm quite happy that British politicians, subject to democratic controls, are better placed to define our labour laws. I am confident that they'd be more in sync with my views than the alternative who, unwittingly I'm sure, destroy jobs.
LMAO, you can't just "reverse" a treaty after 200 years and hand back half the nation. Even if the people themselves wanted to break away, unless the Federal Government with the blessings of the other States lets them go, then they have no legal right to secede and it would mean Civil War and the Aztlan Nationalists would lose, badly. 14th Amendment is a direct promise from the Federal Government to intervene politically/militarily in any State to protect the rights of US Citizens and since tearing a US citizen unwillingly from his country is a violation of civil rights, It would just mean a permanent military occupation in the South West.
Nobody is forcing you to give up hours of work. If you want to work after the program that's ok and you will be paid for it. But setting a limit to the hours of work is more than necessary. Otherwise employers could say "you work 24 hour a day or your fired" and people would have no protection against that.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't you contradicted yourself here? How is setting a limit to the hours of work not forcing some individuals to give up hours of work?
