[dogma1138]

EU law has very limited affect on PTO, wages and healthcare, in fact there is little to none.

If the EU attempted to mandate wages and PTO it would be the end of the EU, you can't have the same wage in Estonia as you have in Germany or Norway or Denmark.

There is no pan European legislation on any of the subjects you mentioned really besides privacy and human rights, and as far as human rights goes countries do have exemptions ;)

Denmark for example opted out of the following EU principals: security and defence, citizenship and police and justice, as well as the Euroblock.

This means that Denmark does not fully participates in the AFJS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_of_freedom,_security_and_...

The only real financial EU laws/policies are those for the Euroblock and a few that were defined in the Maastricht treaty and those in general are very vague like a country should not have a higher inflation by X% for 3 consecutive years than the average of the 3 worst performing members of the union and other such nonsense that isn't really acted upon when the shit hits the fan...

[rbehrends]

> If the EU attempted to mandate wages and PTO it would be the end of the EU, you can't have the same wage in Estonia as you have in Germany or Norway or Denmark.

Paid time off is regulated via the Working Time Directive, which sets minimum standards for paid leave (inter alia). You're largely correct about wages and healthcare, though, where the EU has only a very limited role.

[dogma1138]

The WTD has exemption that nearly all companies require workers to sign, primarily the 48 hour a week cap even if you don't work that much even Cisco, Amazon, Google and the rest force you to sign those opt outs. It's also not uniformly applied the as PTO requirements can count public holidays as paid leave and so most countries meet the 28 mandated days with ease, especially considering that the PTO requirements do not apply to contractors, temporary, part time and seasonal workers.

As far as other things Article 153 specifically excludes wages and collective bargaining rights from any EU laws or directives.

[rbehrends]

> The WTD has exemption that nearly all companies require workers to sign, primarily the 48 hour a week cap even if you don't work that much even Cisco, Amazon, Google and the rest force you to sign those opt outs.

This possible derogation is pretty much a UK-only thing. Remember that the UK opted out of the social chapter entirely until Blair ended the opt-out. More importantly, that is not really about paid leave.

That member states can work around aspects of the Working Time Directive does not change the fact that it does mandate paid leave.

> As far as other things Article 153 specifically excludes wages and collective bargaining rights from any EU laws or directives.

If you're referring to Article 153 (5) TFEU, keep in mind that the EU Charter includes a right to collective bargaining and read up on the Laval case (Laval Un Partneri Ltd v Svenska Byggnadsarbetareforbundet).

In short, even where the EU cannot legislate directly, treaties, directives, and regulations can have an indirect effect.