this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2023
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Work Reform
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A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
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- All workers must be paid a living wage for their labor.
- Income inequality is the main cause of lower living standards.
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Our Goals
- Higher wages for underpaid workers.
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- Better and fewer working hours.
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In the EU it is legally part of the work day, thought not many act on it. EU Supreme Court already ruled it as so.
That ruling is limited. It only applies for jobs where there is no local job site, e.g. construction workers who have changing construction sites.
If you work in an office or factory, or if your work is limited to a certain region (e.g. you clean houses in an area), then commuting to the office/factory/region is not part of the work day.
Otherwise you would get weird situations where people could apply to distant jobs and the employer having to pay those costs and hours. Get a job with a 2 hour one-way commute and you would then only need to work 4 hours... obviously not going to work.
Many employers in Europe actually do pay for some or all commute costs in order to attract workers, but usually they don't pay for the commute hours.
From an employee perspective, that's not much of a problem but the solution is hardly complicated either. Wouldn't employers just not hire people who live too far from the work site?
What if they move while employed?
Sure, but at least in the EU, that would be unlawful discrimination under current rules.
Only if the job has specific requirements, e.g. firefighters need to be at the station within X minutes, can you impose a distance requirement.
So you would need to change those rules then.
The obvious solution is to limit it to the historically normal commute time (30 mins to 1hr each way)
You can choose to live 4 hours away, but the organisation only pays for x hours
I think the minimum commute time available to a young family person in my town now is 45 mins, so that would be an obvious limit here
Our union has refused to push the company on this. They said it is an eu directive not a law.