Also, from the European perspective (and specifically speaking of the technology sector, as that's what I have first-hand experience with), taking sick leave to take care of a child at home isn't a thing, whatsoever. You would just send an email to your team saying that you're sorry but you're working from home because your kid is sick and that would be the end of it.
No compulsion to take vacation.
No compulsion to take sick leave.
No punitive punishments for being human and for your family members being human.
It really is a different world, over here. However, given the American exceptionalism showing up in the thread, I'm going to wager that this probably going to see some vitriolic response.
I work in the technology sector in the US and my experience is exactly the same as yours.
> However, given the American exceptionalism showing up in the thread, I'm going to wager that this probably going to see some vitriolic response.
I actually don't believe in American exceptionalism at all. Nor European exceptionalism. But I am fed up with people from the most developed part of the world acting shocked and morally outraged when life isn't as amazing everywhere else.
You probably didn't intend it that way, but it comes off as extremely smug.
It's not all that comparable. U.S. GDP per capita is $60,000. France is $43,500 (PPP). (In terms of GDP per capita, the U.S. is richer than France by about the same ratio as France is richer than Lithuania or Estonia.) Average net financial wealth per household is almost 3x higher in the U.S. than in France, and 2x higher than the OECD average.
You are implying Europe is more developed than America? America has per capita GDP comparable to Europe's top countries. If not what's wrong with comparing your country's labor laws to a similar country's labor laws?
Yeah, but that's usually comparing a mean income per capita. Personally I'd be curious to see a comparison of what's left of the median income after factoring in the cost of taxes, education, and health care.
But mean income per capita is what should be compared when talking about social services such as healthcare, etc. If you take a developed country, add a bunch of wealth inequality to it, and then say that you can't compare that country to other developed countries because wealth inequality is part of equalition of being developed, you are just going around in circles.
Any comparison should take other effects of work culture into account as well, such as how much time per week we can devote to living once you subtract work and commute times.
This is janitors and cashiers at McDonalds, there’s no “working from home” and i guarantee it’s the same in Europe. We’re not talking about IT jobs here dude.
Seeing this new (to me) word gave me a little meta-joy this morning. Not for the topic at hand, but for the wonderful German word compounding.
Not quite as musical as my favorite three-part compound to date. The Thai word pronounced "malang-tao-tong" is roughly insect-turtle-gold and describes what we would call a ladybug in the US.
American here. I would like to point out that places with amazing health and vacation benefits exist. I work at one in academia. Amazing health insurance, amazing sick leave and vacation (that you are actually allowed to use, guilt free). Paternity and maternity leave, six months (so a total of a year for one couple). If you have a family or value those things, it pays to quit looking solely at that salary field and look for culture and benefits.
The problem in America is that those things are exclusively dependent on one’s employer. More developed countries like Finland or Sweden give everyone those things via national policy.
In Germany if you child is sick you have a right to stay home and take care of it. No need to work from home either during that time (but you can of course choose to do so).
Who pays for this will depend on your employer. Many of them pay for a few days per year. If you need more days or if they don't pay, you can get "Kinderkrankengeld²" from your national health insurance (another 10 days per year).
What you said only applies when you're part of the workforce that can take its work home.
When you're more like the rest of the workforce, you show up where you're expected to man the cash register, nurse your patients, drive your truck, clean up the office, etc.
On the converse... I'm an American whom lives in Indiana. Let me share my experiences.
I worked at Starbucks for 5 years. When I got sick, I showed up to work. I know I worked while having the flu, and making drinks for people. If we didn't show up, our hours for next week would be messed up badly and intentionally. We would go from 35 hours to 15 hours, or we'd be scheduled "clopens" - close at midnight, and open at 4:45a the next morning. If you wanted your job, you showed up and vomited on the floor.
I also worked at wal-mart. I was a 3rd shift stocker. I was fired for getting injured on the job by a faulty pallet jack falling on my foot, and "costing the company money" (exact quote). I even have my discharge paper stating that. Needed x-rays and a tetanus shot. And with someone at the time who had little money, lawsuits are out of the question, especially for a corp like Walmart.
I'll take some of that 'commie socialistic European perspective', if you don't mind :)
If you have official paperwork showing you were fired for an injury on the job, lawyers would be happy to do the lawsuit on a contingency basis. It would be a foregone conclusion.
You'd think. But there's no governmental agency or office to assist with these illegal actions. I'm depending on the charity and hope of profit of a lawyer.
One attorney I talked with didn't do cases on contingency. Another refused because it was against Walmart.
And that was that. Sure, I was wronged. Not a damned thing I can do about it.
You needed to talk to more lawyers. If the case is like you said, it’s open and shut. Walmart gets successfully sued all of the time when they are at fault for workplace accidents.
I personally know of two separate acquaintances’ relatives who were hurt at Walmart, fired, sued with no up front legal fees, and won. One got hit by a parking lot shopping cart train and the other got injured in the mechanic shop.
Maybe you missed the part that I said I was working at Walmart and got fired. This is your typical grunt job, not an IT position with respect and dignity.
I wasn't rolling in dough prior to it, and had even less afterward. The thought that I'd be able to shop around with lawyers and schedule a consultation, and all that while I'm scrambling for looking for another job... Well, it speaks to many people here that do have buffers in their income and savings. I, and all whom I worked with at the time had no buffers.
Maybe I'd have won. Or not. But what I do know is the lawyers who did want to hear my case both said no. Others, I left the details with the secretary. Nothing.
But manual labour is dangerous and unfair. It’s worse in Ag field and even children and families who live near large farming communities are affected by drift and the spraying and watershed poisoning and general environmental degradation. This is why we must automate and get machines to do the dangerous jobs.
Yes, that will be a post labour world but that’s easier to figure out. It’s better to give dignity to people than make human beings work for other human beings. I abhor the very notion.
I thank you for your sympathy. But in a way, I'm glad I was able to experience this. I wouldn't have gained the perspective of this had I not experienced it for myself. I know many here on HN certainly haven't.
I've lived involuntarily homeless for a time. I've been on food stamps. I've been injured and fired on a job. I've had dozens of crummy bad jobs; no benefits, don't care if youre sick, dangerous. You're a "piece" of work, and treated as such. You're a less-than-nothing, because you are who you are.
And then there's IT work. I've finally been able to claw up in the IT world as a systems admin. And the treatment I 'suffer' (laugh) are things like good insurance, PTO, actual honest to goodness sick days - and I'm actually believed, free coffee/espresso/lacrois, snack plates during lunch. And we have at least 2 catered lunches a month. Recently, my employer also sent me to DerbyCon. $1200 right there. Covered.
IT is radically different compared to what most employees go through. We are treated with respect and dignity, and compensated fairly with our salary and perks. Those who serve us when we go into bookstores, supermarkets, restaurants, and more are kept at the basic maintenance level of living - and that is if everything goes right. It usually doesn't. Cars break down; bodies break down; emergencies occur; accidental pregnancies happen; life happens.
Yes, I am a socialist, and also see automation as a solution. And also, unlike the propaganda, there's enough resources that we all can live decently compensated and respected lives. We're not quite there with 100% automation, and still need human labor for a bit... But there's no reason (other than greed) for barely-but-not-quite maintenance wages.
I am not a socialist. I believe that our lives are better because of capitalism and there is a space where there is a third system..that is neither pure capitalism or pure socialism. I also don’t beleive that resources are unlimited or that everyone has an equal claim to it. Unless we drastically curtail human population numbers. We do live upon a resource constrained rock. All ‘groups’ must have equal claim..which means non human species and nature and habitat have equal claim to natural resources that we monopolise and appropriate. I also believe that some jobs shouldn’t be done by human beings at all. Freedom is foremost. Dignity is next but if we give people true freedom, everything else will follow. That is freedom from exploitation and also freedom from coercion. I detest poor people exploited just as much as rich people being shamed. One day, jobs will disappear as will wages. What then? We have to plan for such a future. We have to create new models of relationships and how we interact with others.
Well would you prefer to have a crappy job or no job at all? Don’t labor under the assumption that government mandates don’t affect the decisions of businesses.
So it's ok with you if companies treat people like crap, because the alternative is fewer jobs? By that logic, it's ok for companies to kill off a few of their workers through horrible safety practices, than not offering any jobs at all, because ++ jobs is more important than anything. We've spent the last couple of centuries trying to correct that line of thinking, why hang on to it?
The alternative to crappy business practices isn't people starving in the streets because of lack of jobs. The alternative is that the people with excess resources distribute some of those resources to others that would otherwise starve.
There are many nations out there with working systems that don't accept that sort of abuse of it's workers - why do people insist on choosing ideologies that are so obviously not in the interests of the majority of the people?
>why do people insist on choosing ideologies that are so obviously not in the interests of the majority of the people?
Because policies that depend on taking from the economically productive to prop up the unproductive eventually become unsustainable.
Does it upset you that people work jobs instead of voting to receive a million USD annual stipend? Would you vote for a policy giving that to every person?
Back to the Walmart story. There is more we aren’t being told. There are thousands of lawyers drooling to take a case against a company the size of Walmart firing people for simply getting hurt due to the company’s incompetence. OP more than likely was at fault for the accident, which would be grounds for termination in most European countries as well.
> Because policies that depend on taking from the economically productive to prop up the unproductive eventually become unsustainable.
1) There are many very stable nations that have had long-term policies of treating their disadvantaged much better than you seem to be proposing, so this point is demonstratively false. Why do you believe it's true?
2) There are many people in every country that aren't economically productive - the elderly, the very young, the chronically ill, etc. Most countries manage to afford to take care of these people in some manner without collapse. It's possible because technology has driven our average productivity extremely high in historical terms, and there are more than enough resources available to take care of them. Doing so doesn't cause those societies to collapse. I'd suggest it makes them more stable when fewer people are desperately poor.
I'm not saying you're arguing that those example groups of people don't deserve assistance. But you do seem to be saying that _some_ economically unproductive people shouldn't be helped to survive. What is special about the second group of people? Why does helping them somehow lead to an unsustainable society when supporting other groups doesn't?
I believe my free-market opinions are in the best interest of the people. Of course, it’s in some people’s interests (those who produce significant real value) more than others (those who produce little value) but I still think it’s in the best interest of everyone
Also, I would rather keep my money and not redistribute it to the bottomfeeders.
I didn't say he thought it was 'good'. I restated his rhetorical question as a statement: that he was ok with the tradeoff ( poor working conditions for more jobs ). I think it's pretty clear that's what he was saying and I doubt he'd disagree. I am trying to point out that there ARE better alternatives. We've been making a lot of progress in that direction for years, so it's clear that it's an option if we choose it.
I'm honestly trying to understand why people would suggest that its ok to accept that tradeoff. I get why in any individual case someone might choose to make that decision - they may truly have no other options available to them, and the alternatives are much worse (real hunger, homelessness). I just don't understand why people seem to promote that situation as a political position - that somehow as a society that's the best we can do, or it's the best policy to allow it.
Paid sick leave with a urgent care clinic available at no charge. Someone gets sick (esp with food service) and they work for you, they should provide that clinic at no charge, and you get a legit sick day.
The stick: the health dept should be able to come in and close that food service thing down right then and there if someone is obviously sick. And because it was negligence of the company, the company is still legally obligated to pay the wages of everyone they screwed over. Tipped staff will go by average weekly reported wages.
.... But that's wishful thinking. The NRA - National Restaurant Association pays more and is better connected than public health and respectful treatment. I mean, who really cares if a few sick workers spread influenza as hotspots in food service, and infect many more, and likely kill a few with compromised immune systems? /sarcastic
I think most people would agree, but then there are a lot of workers who simply cannot afford to take any time off, no matter how sick. I just witnessed this with my mom's nurse practitioner, who had to cut her own maternity leave short because the paid leave was not enough to cover her rent.
I don't know the solution I feel like given it's illegal to punch someone in the face it should also be illegal to give them your contagious sickness. Yea I know it's impossible to tell who gave you the their sickness so it will never happen. Just find it strange that if you punch someone in the face you'll face criminal charges but you get them sick so that they have fever that may give them brain damage, a sore throat so bad they can't eat, a cough so harsh it scars their insides for life, absolutely nothing. I get there's nothing that can be done legally but there's zero contrition as well.
I often wonder if we could magically make every person on the planet avoid human contact for 1 month if we'd kill off the common cold. I know it's impossible obviously it's just an interesting thought experiment.
FWIW work from home because your kid is sick is extremely common at every company I’ve worked at in America as a software engineer as well. No one gets mad and it doesn’t make you look bad. Maybe I’ve been lucky or it could be an industry thing not necessarily a country thing.
It seems that your argument directly supports the headline claim.
How about European low-income people?
Low-income people work mostly in retail, transports and logistics, cleaning, construction, and physical jobs. They can't work from home.
In Germany every employee is entitled to leave of absence if their child is ill - up to a maximum of ten working days per child in the calendar year. Many children are sick more than that.
A doctor’s note from the first day is required. Employees typically receive their full income the first few days taken off, but it varies.
an email to your team?!?! HAHHAHAHA did you even read the part about low income. People in families making <$35000 aren't sending emails to their "team"
Uh TFA is talking about low income parents. In the tech sector here, it's the same. I can "work from home" to take care of a sick kid, or I can just use a sick day, which I have in plentiful supply, and avoid the pretense of pretending to work while I'm not at the office.
A waitress, housekeeper, janitor, or someone else who actually has to be at a specific place to perform their work, doesn't have that kind of flexibility.
uhh no, doctors lawyers and politicians, basically anyone making >>$100k have way more leeway. You seriously think a dr is going to run around in a patient care setting while he's contagious, .e.g has the flu or some stomach infection? Maybe if he's the only dr in a rural setting he might go if it's a minor cold, same as with a lawyer for a court date, or politician who really needs to go vote or attend some important meeting. Not to mention that these people also have $ to hire nannies
Even in IT, if the company doesn't support any remote working (and there are many company that still don't), you'd have no choice but to use a day off.
If one of my kids is sick, i just email the office to tell them I'm going to be working from home. Not a big deal. I've never worked anyplace where it would have been a problem.
You take a separate additional sick leave as a parent with a sick child in Germany. Working from home is something the employee can do to mitigate his absence. Each parent gets 10 days per year with one kid and up to 25 with multiple kids. If you are a single parent it doubles, so 20 for one kid and up to 50 for 2+ kids
edit: kids up to the age of 12.
edit2: it can be unpaid. However you get sickpay instead.
We dont have grocery bagers. I assume you mean people whos sole income are tips? Thats not legal here. You can tip the pizza guy and waiter, but they are employees getting a paycheck from their employers. Tips are a bonus for a job well done and unrelated to them making a living.
Part time with a fixed schedule works the same way.
With flexible hours the average working hours per day are calculated. So if you work for 40 hours a month, a sick day gets you around 2 hours of sick leave.
edit: I think I got you now, you mean day labor, who get payed for how long they can work for changing employers?
I had to google for that, those are "Unständig Beschäftigte". Those are people who are employed for less then a week. They dont get sick leave. I couldnt tell you an example where it is allowed to hire someone like that. Even field workers/harvest helper get a normal contract with predefined working hours.
>In other words, you're out of touch with ordinary, less privileged workers.
Just because I'm "out of touch" with ordinary, less privileged workers doesn't equate to my experience and observations in the sector as being invalidated, yeah? Isn't the site "Hacker News" and not "ordinary, less privileged workers'" news?
>Oh, come on. If you're a developer you can have a "work from home" day in the US as well.
That might be true for you but is it true for developers in the overall society?
Let's take this to an extreme example: A coworker missed over two months, last year, for 'x' medical reasons. What would've surely driven him to the poor house in the states was paid through those taxes you later commented on and there was no threat to his job because of it.
>Plus, you can earn far more and you pay less in taxes.
What does that have to do with anything related to kids and the propensity to send them to school because you haven't the time to take off to take care of them or the funds to have a minder? Surely, those less taxes (and more pay) should equate to more days from school, yeah, if it really is as exceptional as you're trying to make it sound.
Personally, I like paying taxes for a better society (e.g.: education, health, infrastructure, etc.) but that's just me. However, that has nothing to do the topic.
> Let's take this to an extreme example: A coworker missed over two months, last year, for 'x' medical reasons. What would've surely driven him to the poor house in the states was paid through those taxes you later commented on and there was no threat to his job because of it.
Disability insurance is a standard employment benefit in the US for white collar jobs and they would be protected from dismissal by the FMLA.
Less privileged workers undoubtedly have it better in Europe than they do in the US, but it's completely dishonest to compare a developer in Europe to a cashier in the US. Even in Europe, cashiers and construction workers cannot work from home. Even in the US many people do work from home sometimes.
> Just because I'm "out of touch" with ordinary, less privileged workers doesn't equate to my experience and observations in the sector as being invalidated, yeah?
It means your experience doesn't scale to broader society, but you were making a point about broader society. If the ordinary secretary or the shift worker or the policeman don't get their "work from home days" there's essentially no difference in your example to what's going on in the US.
> That might be true for you but is it true for developers in the overall society?
Working from home on occasion certainly isn't unusual.
> Let's take this to an extreme example: A coworker missed over two months, last year, for 'x' medical reasons. What would've surely driven him to the poor house in the states was paid through those taxes you later commented on and there was no threat to his job because of it.
"Surely" you have no idea about the US system. Paid sick days is something your insurance may or may not cover. You get the choice of whether you want to pay for that or not. States laws also may protect workers from getting fired during longer illness.
> What does that have to do with anything related to kids...
Nothing, just rubbing it in. If you're successful in Finland (or some other little Euro country), you're going to be far less wealthy than in the US. You'll be paying for everyone else to live. If that makes you happy, go for it. Pat yourself on the back.
>Working from home on occasion certainly isn't unusual.
Occassion and modus operandi are two entirely different precepts but you know this, yeah, and your trying ever-so hard to be pedantic. It's cute.
>Paid sick days is something your insurance may or may not cover.
I thought it was the employer who paid the sick days in the states. What you're talking about falls under the FMLA, I believe; which is an entire different set of principles - independent of the actual employer, yeah? Then you reinforce the point that it's not an overall societal protection with the statement, "States laws also may protect workers from getting fired during longer illness."
>Nothing, just rubbing it in.
You've brought nothing of attainable consequence to the conversation, much less any evidence of your assertion. How can you rub in that which you assume to be true but have no evidence for or against? The arrogance is astounding, to say the least.
>If you're successful in Finland (or some other little Euro country), you're going to be far less wealthy than in the US.
I'm assuming you're speaking of purely fiscal wealth, which is a pretty myopic perspective to have. You've provided no evidence of this claim. Are you sure we, the europoor, are actually poor or is this just something you're reverberating from the echo chambers of American exceptionalism.
>You'll be paying for everyone else to live.
Do you not do this with the current Social Security system? The irony is palpable...
>If that makes you happy, go for it.
Already doing it, so this is pretty pedestrian.
>Pat yourself on the back.
Is this not what you're trying to do with your own argument around more pay and less taxes? Pot meet kettle. The banality of this tangible irony is already starting to bore me.
Do you have anything of consequence to proffer or is it going to continually be this mundane level of effort, deriving from your bravado? If the latter of the two, then, you're bringing a knife to a gun show and it wouldn't be fair to keep being you with your own phantom limbs, so I'm dipping out. Have fun!
>Are you sure we, the europoor, are actually poor or is this just something you're reverberating from the echo chambers of American exceptionalism.
I’m not sure why you are getting so defensive when it is you who understands so little about the US that you just described a typical US tech job and tried to pretend it was something special about Europe.
Developers in the US make significantly more on average than developers anywhere in Europe. Developers working at the big tech companies do even better than that by clearing north of $300k annually between stock, cash, and bonuses. These jobs allow working from home, provide healthcare, PTO, significant maternity/paternity leave, etc. A few minutes of googling these numbers might help you gain some perspective.
The US is easily the best place to be when you have in-demand skills. Every country is going to trail pretty far behind on what it’s employment ecosystem can offer a developer (as of right now). This is why your post sounds so ignorant to people familiar with the perks of being a developer in the US.
Where the US is absolutely terrible compared to Europe is the social safety nets that people in worse jobs depend on. Yet that’s not what you decided to use as your point of comparison. You instead tried to show off the perks of tech skills there, which are worse than many HN readers receive in the US.
> Occassion and modus operandi are two entirely different precepts but you know this, yeah, and your trying ever-so hard to be pedantic.
It is you who is being pedantic. My point is that working from home, as a developer, because of some special case is generally possible, just like in your case.
Now what about all the other professions in your country? Do they all get their little "stay at home" days? No? Then what's your point?
> How can you rub in that which you assume to be true but have no evidence for or against? The arrogance is astounding, to say the least.
Why, I thought it was common knowledge.
Finland, as compared to the US:
Higher cost of living with less disposable income:
And obviously, the weather in Northern Europe sucks. Priceless!
> I'm assuming you're speaking of purely fiscal wealth, which is a pretty myopic perspective to have.
No, I'm talking about the standard of living. Of course somebody with a lower standard of living will have to find some other reason to make themselves look superior.
> Do you not do this with the current Social Security system?
You can look up the difference yourself.
> The irony is palpable... Do you have anything of consequence to proffer or is it going to continually be this mundane level of effort, deriving from your bravado? If the latter of the two, then, you're bringing a knife to a gun show and it wouldn't be fair to keep being you with your own phantom limbs, so I'm dipping out.
I don't know about your native language, but if you write like this in English, it makes you sound like a clown.
Also, from the European perspective (and specifically speaking of the technology sector, as that's what I have first-hand experience with), taking sick leave to take care of a child at home isn't a thing, whatsoever. You would just send an email to your team saying that you're sorry but you're working from home because your kid is sick and that would be the end of it.
No compulsion to take vacation.
No compulsion to take sick leave.
No punitive punishments for being human and for your family members being human.
It really is a different world, over here. However, given the American exceptionalism showing up in the thread, I'm going to wager that this probably going to see some vitriolic response.