8+Tabling Americans And 4 Tabling Europeans

[DesertCat]

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The laws are so restrictive that you can't hire a full time employee without committing to employ them for life.


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That is just utter BS.

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Well, laws vary from country to country, but in Amsterdam we were forced to write a lucrative severance package into an employment agreement with our sales manager (something like 2-3 years severance), as lawyers told us that under the law in the Netherlands we would owe him that much anyways if we ever fired him.

This is for a guy managing an office that was a startup for both of us. For him it was heads, he wins, tails, he wins. We put up the money, and if it fails, we lose a bunch of money while he takes a huge paycheck and goes back to doing what he was doing before. Ever wonder why more companies don't take startup risks under restrictions like that? Wonder why they outsource good jobs to other countries?

[NickMPK]

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This is clearly not true. If you have some sort of evidence of this, please share it.

Fifty years ago, most women worked zero hours a week, and about half of men had union jobs. Now, most people of both sexes work full time jobs, and I have seen no evidence that the vacation time or average hours/per worked have gone down.


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First, here is U.S. census data showing that inflation adjusted income has increased at all income levels pretty much every year for decades.

Second, do your really think that woman did not work at all 50 years ago? Who took care of children, cleaned the home, cooked meals? Primarily, it was woman. Wasn't that work? If woman are working today, it means either that labor saving advances have reduced the home work load enough they can do both, or they are paying someone to take care of their home.

One way of looking at average hours worked is US Dep of Labor stats. Go to their statistics page and ask it to show you data for all private employment. When it presents the results to you, ask it to show from 1964 to 2007. You'll find that average hours worked has declined from 38.5 hours per week in 1964, down to 33.9 hours per week in 2007.

So making more, working less. Game, shot, match!

And don't think politicians are going to necessarily propose exotic new programs during elections (they learned from Hilary's "health plan"). They'll just tell you that things are getting worse, give you a smattering of irrelevant and far from comprehensive statistics to scare you, and say, "elect me, I'll solve these problems".

The truth is things are mostly getting better. The things that are getting worse (our currency, our debt) are all driven by politicians trying to get re-elected by spending your tax monies like crazed teenagers with dad's credit card in a shopping mall.

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Most of this reply was irrelevant to what I wrote.

- I never said that average income hasn't increased.

- I never said that politicians didn't "propose new programs". What does this have to do with reducing labor hours? Name me a major American politician who advocates shortening the work week or increasing mandatory vacation time.

- Those labor statistics are completely off point. They are only the stats for "production workers". These are mostly union jobs, and they are disappearing. It may be true that the average production worker works fewer hours now than they used to, but (a) a much smaller % of people work in production, (c) a much greater % of the population overall is now employed, which is bound to increase average labor hours, and (c) those stats say nothing about hours worked in service or professional industries; these are the growing industries that I cited when I was talking about trends in labor hours. Why would you make a point of citing only the least possible relevant statistics unless to be deliberately deceptive?

- Finally, it is certainly true that labor saving devices have reduced the need for work in the home. But why has work in the home been replaced by work outside the home, rather than increased free time for both sexes?

[DesertCat]

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- I never said that politicians didn't "propose new programs". What does this have to do with reducing labor hours? Name me a major American politician who advocates shortening the work week or increasing mandatory vacation time.


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I never said they did. I said that politicians use untrue scare statistics claiming the middle class is earning less and that we are working more so they can campaign for more government "solutions" the problems they just made up.

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- Those labor statistics are completely off point. They are only the stats for "production workers". These are mostly union jobs, and they are disappearing. It may be true that the average production worker works fewer hours now than they used to, but (a) a much smaller % of people work in production, (c) a much greater % of the population overall is now employed, which is bound to increase average labor hours, and (c) those stats say nothing about hours worked in service or professional industries; these are the growing industries that I cited when I was talking about trends in labor hours. Why would you make a point of citing only the least possible relevant statistics unless to be deliberately deceptive?


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Wrong. Here are just some of the categories you claim this doesn't cover.

Retail trade
Information
Financial activities
Professional and business services
Leisure and hospitality
Other services

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- Finally, it is certainly true that labor saving devices have reduced the need for work in the home. But why has work in the home been replaced by work outside the home, rather than increased free time for both sexes?

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Maybe they replaced more work in the home with less work out of the home? You are forgetting how brutal our existence was just a hundred years ago, how few luxuries and labor saving devices we had, and how hard people had to work just to feed, clothe, and care for their families.

[NickMPK]

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Wrong. Here are just some of the categories you claim this doesn't cover.

Retail trade
Information
Financial activities
Professional and business services
Leisure and hospitality
Other services



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Yes, I apparently missed that. But I don't understand how these statistics can be anything but misleading, because I don't know anyone who works less than a 40 hour work week, unless they have a part time job. And there are very few part time jobs that earn a living wage.

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- Finally, it is certainly true that labor saving devices have reduced the need for work in the home. But why has work in the home been replaced by work outside the home, rather than increased free time for both sexes?

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Maybe they replaced more work in the home with less work out of the home? You are forgetting how brutal our existence was just a hundred years ago, how few luxuries and labor saving devices we had, and how hard people had to work just to feed, clothe, and care for their families.

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100 years ago, certainly. 50 years ago, I am not so sure. Since the beginning of industrialization, workers have fought for, and slowly achieved, both higher wages and shorter hours. But for some reason that fight for shorter hours stopped in the US once we got to 40 hours and 2 weeks vacation, while it continued in Europe. I just don't know why this is, especially now that the fact that both sexes are usually working should ease the burden on everyone.

My main point is that this country forces people to work more than in Europe; despite how much we proclaim the value of the free market, there is not a free market for free time. In most fields I cannot choose to make less money in exchange for a shorter week or longer vacation. It is totally expected that one will seek out the job that pays the most, but wanting to trade some of that money for free time is seen morally poor choice, marking one as lazy and uncommitted, rather than simply an morally neutral economic evaluation of one's indifference curves.

[BDaws]

I love DesertCat.

[Peter McDermott]

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My experience is it's simply a matter of motivation. Some of your workers will be very ambitious, some will have other priorities such as home life, the best management is to let each group achieve their own balance and reward each for their contributions.

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And on this closing point, DC, we're in complete agreement.

[ShakeZula06]

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There's an abundance of research that shows that we're only effective when we work a certain number of hours a day. Once you start to go over that number, you start to become less effective and less productive, not more so.

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This situation would be selected against in a free market. Do you see why?
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And if it takes me four hours to do the same amount of work that it takes my more diligent twin eight to do, then I can either choose whether I want to invest that extra time in my future employment prospects, or I can choose whether I prefer to enjoy it as free time now.

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Good for you. Now what does this have to do with violating Business owner Bob and worker Harry's right to freedom of association?
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In the US professional workplace culture where everybody seems to work ludicrous hours simply because that's what's expected, regardless of how effective they are during that time period, employees seem to me to be both less happy and, once again, less free.

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What's not free about it? Were employees forced by someone to work? You have a weird defintion of free.

[ShakeZula06]

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In Norway the minimum wage is 3 times as high as it is in the US...

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You support this? Why do you hate poor people so much?

[Goldmund]

Funny thing is I both live in Amsterdam and went to law school. I can guarantee you the package you describe is not rooted in Dutch labor law. Severeance payments are closely related to the time period an employee has been working at the company involved. Assuming normal circumstances and excluding any ground for firing an employee it comes down roughly to 1 month of salary for every year worked, depending on who is ''at fault". Employees with labor contracts longer than twelve months can be dismissed within the first two months of their engagement without penalty, those with shorter contracts within the first month. As well: any labor contract can be temporary instead of (semi-)permanent. Parties can of course agree to different terms, but those are not mandated by law. Goldmund


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The laws are so restrictive that you can't hire a full time employee without committing to employ them for life.


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That is just utter BS.

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Well, laws vary from country to country, but in Amsterdam we were forced to write a lucrative severance package into an employment agreement with our sales manager (something like 2-3 years severance), as lawyers told us that under the law in the Netherlands we would owe him that much anyways if we ever fired him.

This is for a guy managing an office that was a startup for both of us. For him it was heads, he wins, tails, he wins. We put up the money, and if it fails, we lose a bunch of money while he takes a huge paycheck and goes back to doing what he was doing before. Ever wonder why more companies don't take startup risks under restrictions like that? Wonder why they outsource good jobs to other countries?

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[Tony.T]

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There isn't a term eurodonk for nothing

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Yes this is why Party became so big [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]