[chollida1]

> I would like, at the very least, to see a federal law forbidding more than 40 hours max

This seems like a nice sentiment but it comes across and being out of touch with the general public.

Many, people need to work more than 40 hours, pretty much anyone who works for an hourly wage that is around the minimum wage level, a week just to make ends meet. If your law is enacted you've just doomed a non negligible portion of the population to poverty.

How would you even enforce your no more than 40 hours a week? What about anyone with a small business, or a lawyer who can bill $400/hour, should he be told he can't make any more money this week?

We just ran a new gas line in our house, the plumber doing it was doing side jobs to save up for a Harley. Your law of not permitting anyone to work more than 40 hours a week seems to make the world a worse place than it is now:(

To clarify, the op said 40 hours should be the most anyone is allowed to work, no exceptions, I'm fine with a law that says no one can be force to work more than 40 hours. But limiting people to 40 hours just seems like a really bad law.

As to the email deletion, I like the idea but it seems like a nightmare from a compliance perspective:)

The biggest down side I can see is that most services only send out one out of office email. What if someone is gone for more than a few days. I"m likely to forget that they are out, or now I have to add everyone's holiday schedule and all correspondence I want them to know about, to the list of things I need to keep in my head so I can resend emails when they come back. I'm scared already:(

[lmm]

> Many, people need to work more than 40 hours, pretty much anyone who works for an hourly wage that is around the minimum wage level, a week just to make ends meet. If your law is enacted you've just doomed a non negligible portion of the population to poverty.

As a European what that says to me is that the minimum wage is too low and should be increased.

And equally there are people today who have to desperately hope that they get assigned enough hours this month to get out of poverty. Restrictions on maximum weekly working time would help those people.

> What about anyone with a small business

Less than 5 employees or a meaningful ownership stake and you're probably exempt, as with most of these kind of regulations.

> a lawyer who can bill $400/hour, should he be told he can't make any more money this week?

Uh, yes?

> To clarify, the op said 40 hours should be the most anyone is allowed to work, no exceptions, I'm fine with a law that says no one can be force to work more than 40 hours. But limiting people to 40 hours just seems like a really bad law.

Economic reality is that that distinction kind of disappears. If unpleasant practice X makes employers more money, and you can volunteer for unpleasant practice X, pretty soon the only way to get a job is if you "volunteer" for X, at least on the low end.

[Roboprog]

Alas, this isn't a logic problem, it's a values problem.

* I've been trained by my fascist, FOX news, libertarian upbringing that business comes first, even if it subjects 99.99% of the population to utter misery, sickness and death.

* I've been trained by my socialist, marxist, tree-hugger upbringing that people come first^H^H^H^H second (after seals and endangered fungi), even if everyone goes bankrupt and starves and our enemies overthrow and kill us.

Yeah, the "other guy's" values look pretty stupid, don't they? (pick which ever "other guy" suits your fancy)

Even if the other guy's values aren't a caricature, it's still hard to agree on what should be the outcome.

[forca]

I'm referring to employers requiring more than 40 hours, not valid personal choice. I'm all for you "choosing" to work extra, with the caveat of double time on the paycheck.

[fauldsh]

I might be wrong, UK law is different than the rest of the EU (you can opt out of the working time directive here).

That said, isn't it a 40 hour max on contracted hours? Otherwise it is completely un-policeable. The idea is that you can't lose your job for refusing to work past 40 hours (i.e. refusing to take overtime). But you are allowed to work the overtime if you so please.

[gambiting]

40 hours/week is maximum your contract in the UK can oblige you to work. Having said that, when I got my job in the games industry I had to sign a statement stating that I voluntarily decide to work over that limit(but I am not required to). And no, overtime is not paid.

[DanBC]

48 hours. http://www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/workingtimedirective.htm

It is not legal to make you sign the opt out.

[gambiting]

Ok 48 hours. And yes, I was told I don't have to sign it, but it's one of these situations when not signing it is ill advised. And in the games industry if I was working more than 48 hours per week it would be because I want to,not because I have to.

[winsome]

I think the comment was geared more towards corporate America where salaried employees are often expected to work 60+ hours per week with no overtime pay or added benefits for the extra effort. At least I'd hope their idea for the law wouldn't limit hourly employees who need to work multiple jobs just to get by.