Is it legal to work more than more than 48 hours in EU with multiple jobs if one is a freelance job? I am working full-time as an International research assistant (in a University Library) in Germany. A startup (based in London) asked me to work with them as a research consultant (a kind of freelancer, 5-10 hours per week). I am working as full time (40 hours/week) and also doing a part-time PhD (4 hours/week, not being paid). My employer gave official permission for part-time PhD. I wanted to work with the startup as a research consultant because we exchange data and technology. As per the EU regulation, there is a limit of a maximum of 48 hours per week. I have two questions: Can I work at two jobs (full-time and freelancer) in Germany and UK? How does an employer check the exact number of the working hour across Germany and London?
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
I infer from the use of the past tense &quot;worked&quot; that you no longer work for the company in question. Also, from the fact that you are wondering whether there might be negative consequences, I infer that you do not have permission to use the systems in question. The specific consequences will depend on where the company and its computers are located, as well as on the nature of the systems you log in to and on what you do with those systems, but it's certainly possible to receive a penalty of several years' imprisonment. The fact that you created the system in question makes no difference.
Issues considered Based on the papers you cite, it seems like its not even straightforward in U.S. law. They discuss three main legal questions that are obstacles to implementing an open-access policy: Is there a &quot;teacher exception&quot; to work for hire, giving researchers initial copyright over their papers? Does a non-exclusive partial rights transfer survive a subsequent exclusive copyright transfer? Is a university policy a sufficient legal instrument to achieve the non-exclusive rights transfer in question (2)? Turns out, this scenario is specific enough that it really matters which jurisdiction is being considered. I took this question as an opportunity to research the copyright regimes of France, Germany and Japan (translations of their respective copyright acts linked). Japanese copyright law is fairly similar to U.S. copyright law in terms of rights transfer, so I will mainly be analyzing the first two (that and I have no competence in Japanese). I am not in any position to be writing papers over this subject, but in considering questions (2) and (3) with a civil law context, I'll cover some laws on governing rights transfers. I'm not considering question (1) because if the university holds original copyright, then it is trivial for them to implement an open-access policy. I thus assume the faculty members hold original copyright for this answer (which is generally the case in France and Germany anyways). Author's rights basics Author's rights are separated into two branches: moral rights and economic rights. Moral rights are generally non-transferable. Often they cannot be waived and last for eternity. Economic rights are those which can be transferred and exploited, but as you note these may also be subject to restrictions. For the rest of this answer, I will be avoiding the term &quot;copyright&quot; as it is ambiguous: It can mean just the economic rights (like in the translated Japanese), or author's right as a whole (like in the translated German and French). Note: Links from this point on are in French (English resources weren't sufficient). Survival of non-exclusive rights transfers In Germany, this is a straightforward affirmative: Section 33 states: Exclusive and non-exclusive rights of use shall remain effective with respect to rights of use granted later. [...] In France, an answer to this question is elusive. This isn't too surprising as French statute hardly references non-exclusive licences. As an example, it took until 2007 for the GPL to be recognized in court. Given that the courts have been leaning towards giving weight to open licenses, my assumption is that they would follow the common-sense approach taken by German law though I've not found any direct statement to that effect. Implementing an open-access university policy From an author's right perspective, the biggest issue I see in drafting such a policy is that by default the authors give the university a non-exclusive right of distribution for future articles. France has particularly strong protections for future works. L131-1 states: Total transfer of future works shall be null and void. Though it may look as if this can be easily avoided by adding a few simple small clauses, jurisprudence has been to interpret this in favour of the author when possible. For further information, see here. While I'm of the opinion the scope of the policy would be narrow enough to avoid the reach of L131-1, there are additional restrictions on publication contracts. Noting that giving the university non-exclusive distribution rights will likely make the university a &quot;publisher&quot; in the eyes of the law, L132-4 states that: A clause by which the author undertakes to afford a right of preference to a publisher for the publication of his future works of clearly specified kinds shall be lawful. Such right shall be limited, for each kind of work, to five new works as from the day of signature of the publishing contract concluded for the first work or to works produced by the author within a period of five years from that same date. This makes it difficult to have a blanket open-access policy. I'm not certain whether an opt-out clause would be enough to avoid the above restriction. Additionally, France has the moral right of retraction allowing the author to withdraw granted rights of use under strict conditions (L121-4). French moral rights can't be waived so it's futile to account for it in a policy, but it's something to be aware of when implementing an open-access system. In Germany, while there are some protections for future unknown types of use, the scope is fairly well defined here. This puts the situation squarely under Section 40: (1) A contract in which the author undertakes to grant rights of use in future works which are not specified in any way or are only referred to by type shall be made in writing. The contract may be terminated by either party after a period of five years following its conclusion. The term of notice shall be six months, unless a shorter term is agreed. I therefore don't see an issue with this in Germany provided that the policy is specifically agreed to and is renewed with faculty at least every 5 years. Legislated open-access Whether or not the university implements a lawful open-access policy (which is challenging in France...), the author has another available option. Both Germany (Section 38(4)) and France (L533-4 I. of the Research Code) have legislated a limited form of open-access that the author has a right to. While the laws are slightly different, they boil down to the following: After publication in a journal, the author may publish the article in an open-access manner after an embargo period of at most 12 months notwithstanding any exclusive rights transfer to a publisher, provided that the research was at least half funded by public funds.
In German Law you need to give your agreement ("Willenserklärung") to a contract or in this case terms of service. This is done by telling the other part. In some cases this can also be implied by an action (example: putting your bottle of beer onto the cashiers table is an offer to buy this bottle). As a second criteria a "Willenserklärung" needs to be the exact will of the part that declares its will (the website user in this case) §§ 133, 157 BGB or that the other side (you) could only see so (not the case here as this mainly speaks of content). If you visit a website and there are terms of services, the "Willenserklärung" is only given when the user read and agreed to the terms. If he did not, the terms of service are not applied until the user agrees to them. So I would recommend to block the website until the user agreed (overlay) as you need to proof he did when in court. Additionally there are so called AGB's in Germany. Those are contracts that are used or planed for many (more than 3) uses and set by one side (you). This may apply here, so you need to follow a lot of other rules like making sure the user had access and agreed, then there are many content restrictions and so on... I recommend consulting a German Lawyer specialized on this topic as this is very complex and includes other German laws for Media too, depending on the content of your site and terms. Also note that everything said is only based on my own knowledge and can not be used as safe legal source.
The answer to your question is that your manager cannot ask you to undertake training without payment. All employees are entitled to be paid for the work they have done. They are also entitled to be paid if they are ready and willing to work but their employer has not provided them with any work to do, unless your employment contract says otherwise. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/rights-at-work/rights-to-pay/ Zero hours contracts can be very complicated legal issues, but you are entitled to be paid for the time you spend there doing what your employer has asked you to do. However, if your employment were to be terminated due to a disagreement then you may not be able to make any claim before an Employment Tribunal as you do not yet have a sufficient length of employment. There are many legal complications, and each case is different and individual. Giving general legal advice is beset with all kinds of problems. You may wish to direct your employer to the Citizens' Advice page. If they do not agree to either pay you for your time there or allow you to leave when they do not wish to pay you then your best option might be to seek employment elsewhere.
Yes. The European Enforcement Order is an explicit procedure for uncontested claims like this. That means no German court is involved (unlike Dale M's answer suggests). The Greek Court files an EEO, and this can be enforced directly in Germany without going through German courts again. That means you can face wage garrisons, bank account freezes etcetera.
It is not uncommon for an employer to ask a former employee to assist with something as a courtesy, and sometimes the former employee will choose to do so. If it requires more than a small amount of time, this may be done under a short-term consulting contract for pay. But unless there was a contract of employment requiring such post-employment advice, there is no legal obligation for the former employee to provide such assistance. The most the former employer could do is give a poor reference if asked by potential future employers, and most large corporate employers now only give job title, salary range, and dates of employment to avoid claims of incorrect or defamatory statements in such references.
If your friend was a salaried W2 full time exempt employee hired by the company to, among other things, write software like this, then the fact that it was developed "off the clock" with the employee's own resources means nothing once he gives it to the company. I mean if I give you a present and it blows up and breaks your arm, I'm still liable even if we didn't have a "contract" - especially if I knew it would blow up. Your friend's position is even worse since the relationship entails the employee's having the employer's best interests in mind. If I were your friend, I'd either figure out how to fix this or take gnasher729's advice from the comments and find a country where it's easy to hide from parties public and private. Maybe buy a bunch of canned food and go live on a boat?