Is there any legal limit on how long my employer can ask me to travel? I'm a salaried employee at a Fortune 500 and my contract says nothing specifically about travel (and no mention of anything like % of time traveling in the req etc.) I was asked to go on a 2 week trip that was then extended to 4 weeks and now I'm being told it could be extended further. Is there any legal limit to how long I can be asked to be out of state on travel? Can my employer just keep indefinitely extending my trip?
Assumed: United States jurisdiction, no discrimination component to your experiences. There is not a legal limit on how much time an employer requires you to be in another city so long as the employer is complying with wage and hour laws, family leave laws, and the like. They may be in violation of their employment contract with you if the contract specified that you were being hired for a position in one city. A four-week trip does not sound like "time travelling" to me, it sounds like a temporary posting in another city. Similarly, depending on how well the contract is drafted, the state whose law governs the employment, and the company's other behavior you may be able to sue them using material misrepresentation or fraudulent statements about the position you would be taking. If you want more insight into whether you might have a case, take your contract to an attorney. In practice, however, the solution is almost certainly not a lawsuit. The solution may be to start looking for a new job, to communicate better with your boss, or to figure out how much money it would take to keep you working doing the job you are actually doing rather than the one you were hired to do, and to negotiate a salary increase. Try posting your question with a few more facts over at workplace.stackexchange.com for more insight into how to deal with the problem professionally.
This is a tricky question on the intersection of visa and tax laws. It is tricky because every country can make its own rules that apply when you are in that country or do business in that country. Even within the EU, there is no uniform approach because freedom of movement merely covers the right to work in a country, but not the rules which have to be followed when doing so. Thus, you have to fall back to reading each individual country's rules and legislation. In general: Whether you are even allowed to work or which work activities are permitted depends on your visa or visa-free status. If you are a permanent resident or citizen of the UK, you can come to and work in every EEA country, until the end of the Brexit transition period, subject to the same rules as residents in that country. Often, visa-free visits or business visa allow some business activities such as attending meetings with clients or collecting information, but not performing actual work. If you're interested in what business activities the UK allows visitors from other countries to do, take a look at the visitor rules. Income tax may be due at the place of tax residency or where the income is generated/earned, in particular where you actually perform the work. There is a widespread belief that you only gain tax residency after staying in one country for 6 months, but this is misleading in the general case: every country makes its own rules, and income tax may be due even without (permanent) tax residency. The relevant countries (the country where you work and the country where you normally reside) might have a tax agreement that specifies where tax is due. Within the EU, it is fairly common that a person works in a different country than the one they reside in, so there is a well-developed network of tax treaties. Often, certain activities are exempt from local taxes, such as compensation for visiting researchers or regular employment. There's also a good chance that profit from independent work / business profits are only taxable at the place(s) where that enterprise has a permanent establishment – but it depends on the details. This section is based on the OECD model tax treaty (https://doi.org/10.1787/mtc_cond-2017-en) which most treaties follow closely. If no tax treaty exists that exempts your income from local taxation, you must consult the local tax laws. VAT rules are entirely different, and for B2B services are generally taxed at the location of the client (place of supply rules). But every country makes its own rules. Exception: within the EEA, cross-border B2B supply is always taxed at and by the client via the reverse-charge mechanism. So things can get quite tricky, and a business visitor should inform themselves beforehand what activities they are allowed to perform abroad and whether there are tax implications. is it any different from a UK author going travelling, taking lots and lots of notes, or even writing his/her next novel whilst in various locations, and publishing once returned to the UK? Here no tax implications arise because the travelling author is not paid during their travels, but they have to consider visa rules when performing their work. Such rules often have exemptions for artists. However, it depends on the rules of the travelled country. what basis does a government have for deciding &quot;where&quot; work was done? Each country is sovereign and can make its own rules. How would that apply if a team of software developers had a virtual &quot;pair programming&quot; session, with one in USA, one in UK, and one in the Far East ? &quot;Where&quot; has that software been written? It is not generally relevant where software was written, aside from copyright or export regulation issues which might have their own rules. Since each of the three programmers is working in their own country, no particular visa or income tax issues arise. However, if they have a common employer, the employer does have to consider the local employment laws regardless of where the employer is established, which may include paying some taxes in every country.
If no such challenge has occurred to this day, who could potentially have a standing to bring it to court? Beside ohwilleke's points, such a challenge would only seem viable if the imposed timeframe for finding new job (60 days) was practically not sufficient to secure one for a person eligible for a H1B visa. These visas are not granted to random people most of which would struggle to find a job in the US. They are granted to qualified specialty occupation holders — taking into account the market demand for particular occupations/skills. The expectation is that H1B visa holders should not have trouble finding jobs and, if fired, should be able to secure a new job in a matter of few weeks. If they cannot do so it means they are not in demand, which means they no longer fit the visa grant criteria and therefore should leave. With the above in mind, "the power to coerce workers" is legally just bargaining power, not threat or force. The workers are welcome to accept offered conditions, or take chance to find better ones in 60 days if they think they are skilled and demanded enough. And if they do not think that, they should not be in the country on H1B visa in the first place.
The EU-wide 48 hour limit and the German Arbeitszeitgesetz only apply to employees, not to self-employed persons or freelancers. Thus, it would in principle be legal to have a full-time job and do any amount of freelancing on the side. I'm not sure whether your PhD student position factors into this since it is unpaid. If you have multiple employers, the sum of working time matters – this is one reason why you have to notify your employers about additional jobs. One employer cannot check your time with another employer, so you should inform them when your shifts change (while employers can assign you shifts, they must consider your personal circumstances). But self-employment is not employment. If you take this offer, you would act as a German business, perform work in Germany, pay taxes in Germany, but have an UK client. (Assuming your work would be done remotely rather than travelling to the UK to perform your work there). Freelancing would also mean that you'll meet the wonderful world of German bureaucracy, including registering with the Finanzamt, writing invoices, doing accounting, filing taxes, dealing with VAT, and trying to navigate a no-deal Brexit. At least your work likely counts as freiberuflich rather than gewerblich, which would free you from a Gewerbeanmeldung. Your don't have to seek permission from your employer when taking up a side job, but you must notify them. They can object if your side job would impact your work. This would clearly be the case when working for a competitor, or when your side job would bring you over the working time limit. Since you work in the public sector, there may be additional rules (parts of Beamtenrecht apply to your employment relationship). While the working time limit does not apply to freelancing, this might still impact your job if you get too little rest, or if you would become unavailable for your main job during normal working hours. Taking up a side job despite an objection could be cause for immediate termination. Note also that you cannot generally use vacation days to work a side job since vacation is intended for recuperation. To summarize: you would not work an UK job, but be employed in Germany and be self-employed in Germany the working time limit only relates to employed work, not self-employed work your employer may nevertheless be able to object to you taking up another job if it would affect your work
My story: UK passport holder, resident in Switzerland, driving from Houston to San Antonio and stopped doing 105mph in a 60mph section of highway. I was given the citation and instructions, etc., but told the officer I was leaving in 2 days and may not be able to tend to it in time. On my return to Switzerland, I called the court and asked how I could pay. I was told I could get a money order from the post office, to which I replied, "Really, the Swiss Post office will issue U.S. money orders?" After a further 15 minutes of conversation about how I was willing but unable to pay, the officer said, "Well, I guess that we ain't commin' to Switzerland to get you so just ignore it!" I asked if I could have that in writing and he asked me to write to the court and explain my situation. 3 weeks later and I received a reply saying all was forgiven and I should have no problem re-entering the U.S. or the State of Texas. So my advice would be to call them, and act willing to pay. Things may have changed and you may be able to pay with a credit card, but if you act willing and they are unable to accept your payment, then as long as you have a paper trail, you should be fine. I have entered the U.S. dozens of times since and have even sponsored visas for others.
The interviewee is not an employee At least, not yet. As such, employment law does not apply to them. For the interviewer(s), we have insufficient information As a general rule, and insofar as practicable, the rest break must be in the middle of each four-hour work period. In an eight hour day, one rest break normally falls on either side of the meal break. However, the rest breaks can be taken at any time by mutual agreement.
Is UPS allowed to take my money and business without intention to fulfill its side of the transaction? No. The company's belated change of mind constitutes breach of contract, and its subsequent refusal to give you a refund completes the prima facie elements of fraud and/or unjust enrichment. The company's acceptance of your package &amp; money and its subsequent act of sending your package to NC strike the applicability of its clause on Refusal of Service (see the link provided in the other answer). The blanket term of "among other reasons" is hardly enforceable at that point. In particular, the existence of a lawsuit between the recipient and the company further weakens any merits of the company's belated change of mind. That is because, by virtue of that lawsuit, the company currently has to deliver to that same recipient other packages anyway. Thus, the company cannot allege that delivering your package "is unsafe or economically or operationally impracticable". Also, since you are the one who paid for the service, the company cannot withdraw on grounds of "the person or entity responsible for payment is not in good standing".
What should and shouldn't happen isn't going to do a damn thing about your passport situation. Your passport isn't being 'held', it's in processing at a place that is currently not operational due to an unprecedented virus outbreak. No one is acting like a criminal or treating you like one, you are just unlucky. If your situation is that dire, you have no choice but to get a temporary passport. I seriously doubt an Indian court is going to side with you on this one. Just because the passport office is legally allowed to operate, doesn't mean that they are actually able to. If, for example, COVID-19 hit enough of their workforce, they won't have enough people to operate properly and they'll have no choice but to close. And no, '2 or 3 people' is not enough to operate such a large scale, sensitive operation with high security requirements, even just to return passports .