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Fundamental rift between US and EU opens up in Munich (www.dw.com)

submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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At the Munich Security Conference, the "shared values" so frequently invoked by Europeans were called into question by US Vice President JD Vance. So do the US and Europe still speak the same language?

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[–] finitebanjo 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I can't really give you the first or second hand account, I don't speak Korean, but there are a lot of English translations of the Korean Labor Standards Act which outlines lots of nice stuff such as maximum 52 hours a week for work meaning a max of 12 overtime for combined weekdays, weekend and holiday pay qualifying as overtime after 12 and 16 hours, max 2 hours overtime per weekday for women with young children and 3 hours for workers under 18.

There are also lots of little caveats and details such as overtime pay being negotiable via contract to exchange for time off instead, or companies involved in security being able to apply for exemption via approval by Minister of Employment and Labor.

Also, supposedly the LSA isn't properly enforced everywhere yet despite the original being passed in 1997, updates as recent as 2021 and 2024, but it's implemented for the large majority of people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

tbh, for european standards, that still sounds pretty bad.

for examle here: 45 hour work week, sunday labor is generally banned, with 6 sundays/year being the limit and having to be paid 50% extra for that work, plus being required to compensate for that day by taking an extra day off the following week. Overtime 2 hour/day, 170 hours/year, 25% extra pay or compensate by taking off same amount of time. Of course there's also exceptions, same as everywhere.

and this is still relatively bad compared to e.g. france with its 35 hour work week.

[–] finitebanjo 1 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Honestly the European sounds worse than the SK to me, except for the part about the 2 hours max is for everyone and not just women with children and people below 18. The 170 hours cap on overtime sounds okay, keeps them from abusing certain people in particular, but the sunday restrictions just sound like pointless theocracy.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Fair enough. As I said, compared to some other european countries it's still relatively bad here. Though 52 hours vs 45 is a whole extra day of work. And while I don't care about the religious stuff, and there is some convenience lost with (most) shops not being open on Sunday, having a specific day that is generally off for everyone so you can spend time with family/friends is kind of nice. And I think one important thing is that most of these things aren't negotiable by a contract, otherwise they'd be meaningless imo, at least in the sense of preventing low paid workers from being exploited.

There's also lots more rules I didn't mention, like acceptable hours you can work before you must take a break, number of hours you can work in a row (with breaks) before you need to get a half day off etc. A lot of it is focussed on giving workers an opportunity to regenerate properly.