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Should Government regulate how many hours we are allowed to work?
The European Work time Directive.
It gives EU workers the right to at least 4 weeks in paid holidays each year, rest breaks, and rest of at least 11 hours in any 24 hours; restricts excessive night work; a day off after a week's work; and provides for a right to work no more than 48 hours per week.

dermot235 7 June 12
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How about if you support UNIONS?!? Before them the workweek was 80-100 hours/week, including young children, and a "benevolent" employer gave you 1-2 hours off on Sunday to attend church.

I agree that unions are important but government can set standards that protect workers. Including those workers not fortunate to be in a union

@dermot235 anybody can form a union, and I prefer that to government fiat...what works in Montana may not be so great in Georgia. Even OSHA is a result of Union efforts.......because some safety ideas Are universal.......

@AnneWimsey I disagree. Easy to say just go form a union. Then you get fired for being the instigator. Something that most people don't know is that union membership in the US is higher than in most European countries. And in Europe there is no doubt that workers have more rights than they have in the US. There are benchmarks and standards that you just can't go below without breaking the law in Europe. These standards were introduced by the European Union as part of the single market. They prevent one country having an unfair advantage when it comes to FREE trade between them and another country in the EU. So no country can gain a competitive advantage over another country by exploiting it's workforce to make them more competitive.

@dermot235 it is illegal to fire someone for attempting to form a union, has been for many decades.

@AnneWimsey They always find a way. My wife organised a Union in here job many years age. Got the Union recognised even. Then 6 months later they bought another company and merged it and where there was duplication they let people go and made them redundant. And it was the Union organisers that got culled. They insisted it was just the way things fell. But it was not. So they can always find a way, and people know that so it can be a very brave thing to do.

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The one percent has to keep us working so we don't have the time or energy to think about how bad it really is.

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It does in aussie, and better conditions than those, but it is something for which the unions fought very hard. Successive governments have eroded these worker's rights though.

I know that in the US they have a huge number of people who have 2 or more jobs, and can end up working from between 60 to 80 hours a week. That's living to work instead of working to live. Where is the sense in that.

@dermot235 There's not much sense is there, or in voting out a health care system.

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Nobody from the US has commented yet. Maybe they are all at work???

@MissKathleen Sorry Kathleen. But Southwestern most does not tell me where you are from? I guess you are in the US. Is that right

@MissKathleen Hard to tell with Wimberley??. Why don't you guys give better addresses on your profiles

@MissKathleen Woman, Southwesternmost,is all I can see???

@MissKathleen It's all I can see as well, perrhaps because I'm using a mobile, although I'd figured you were a yank from other things. I would point out as well though, that US state abbreviations don't mean much to the rest of the world. I'm from SA and that means nothing unless you're aussie. Having said that, I don't care where people are from mostly.

@MissKathleen "It's not really my problem". I think a lot of people in the US forget that they are not the centre of the world. The US is 5% of the global population. From what I can see most americans are very inward looking and most europeans are outward looking and are more aware politically and culturally of the world that surrounds them. I think it would serve the US well if more US citizens looked outside their Bubble. Your statement "It's not really my problem" makes my point for me

I commented and I live in the shithole country, currently under Nazi regime.

@ReadyforaChange I said "a lot of"...not everyone

@dermot235 You said "Nobody from the US has commented yet. Maybe they are all at work???" So yeah, you did say nobody. I was just responding to your response. No need to respond to this one mate.

@ReadyforaChange Touchy touchy. Come on. Have you no sense of humour. "maybe the are all at work". That was so clearly a joke. lighten up

@ReadyforaChange And I did say nobody at the start. Because at that point it looked like it was nobody

@dermot235 Wow, you REALLY like getting in the last word dontcha dude? Congrats, that has earned you an immediate block. See ya!

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Yep!

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On your original question
"Should Government regulate how many hours we are allowed to work?" there is no such regulation in the UK, what there is amounts to a regulation forbidding employers for FORCING their employees to work more than 48 hours per week, it does not stop employees from choosing to do it if overtime or time in lieu is offered.
However we won't have it for much longer once brexit is completed. Employers will be able to order unlimited hours work at no higher rates of pay on threat of dismissal.
Even as things stand most of Europe feel British workers are already exploited and over worked because of exceptions, zer0 hour contracts, subcontracting rules, waivers and other technically illegal workarounds.

Until Brexit there was. If you worked over a 48 hour week over an average of 13 weeks you employers is breaking the law whether the worker wanted to do the extra work or not

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