[nv-vn]

Not against them. I'm against them being required by law. (Some safety standards should definitely be part of the law). But if the law limits hours then it hurts some people more--if they didn't have to pay overtime, you might be able to work twice as many hours. For many programmers, working 1.5x as many hours might be worth 1.5x the salary. But if the company is required to pay for overtime by law, it may be more economical to just hire new workers. In that case, the guy who wants to work overtime is at a disadvantage. This is similar to what happens in part time jobs where people want to work more hours but it's cheaper for the company to hire someone else. The long-term effect is that people have to work 3 part time jobs to get by rather than 1 full time job where there's more opportunity for growth/raises.

With health and safety standards, there's always going to be some really shitty jobs. For example, in terms of health and safety mining coal is pretty undesirable. But if nobody is doing the job, the demand still stays there and the position is available for much higher pay. If you could earn $500k a year doing a job that's destructive to your body it can still be very much worth it. Of course, most of these workers either have few choices for work or are not totally aware of all the health issues associated with their jobs. This is obviously of concern, but I don't think banning the job outright is the right way to go.