Working Time Directive

You may well say that implementing European Directives are to make sure that all member states ‘harmonize’ laws in the interest of their nationals. However, it might surprise you to know that a recent article stated:

‘A total of 15 of 26 member states currently apply opt-outs to the Working Time Directive. Many are specific to employment in healthcare, but the UK, Malta, Estonia, Cyprus and Bulgaria apply opt-outs across their entire economies. Croatia, whose application to join the EU has stalled over a border dispute with Slovenia, has indicated that it would apply a general opt-out as an EU member’.

Equal Pay or should we just OPT OUT!

Employees in healthcare are not the only ones who don’t seem to be insisting on such rigid guidelines.

If you want to skip over these boring statistics, you can take my word for it that the net result is that the daily chores of running a house and family are grossly underpaid and questionably in breach of the EU directive.

A poll of 4,000 housewives for networking website alljoinon.com suggested that the average mum worked for nearly nine hours a day every day. That means 365 days a year. Some 71% of those polled agreed that successfully running the family home was a full-time job. The trouble is that a large proportion of these housewives also work in either part-time or full-time jobs as well. Cleaning and tidying for 71 minutes would net a cleaner £7.10 a day. For more than an hour of cooking a head chef would get £17.30. Fourteen minutes making the beds is worth £1.29 for a chambermaid, and a kitchen assistant would be paid £2.57 for a housewife’s typical 28 minutes of washing up. The poll said the average mum trawled the family finances for 39 minutes, which would cost £12.50 if an accountant did it. A taxi driver would earn £2.53 for the 23 minutes of ferrying children around, and a mystery shopper £2.10 for the 18 minutes a day of grocery shopping.

Now, here’s the acid test!

Last year, a study said that employed women living with their employed partner spent more time doing housework than single women. Labour economist Helene Couprie, of Toulouse University, concluded that on average, an employed woman does 15 hours a week of housework when she lives with her employed partner, up from 10 hours when single. Men, on the other hand, see the hours they commit to housework decline once they begin living as a couple, she found.

The moral here is aimed at all female employees who also happen to be living with a working partner, have two children and take their legal obligations seriously.

OPT OUT! YOU ARE BREACHING EU LAWS!