Before anybody else gets funny ideas: the claims in that article aren't entirely correct.
First of all, I find the claim about 35 hours being the average a bit dubious. It may have been the average some years ago, but today it's probably closer to 38-40 hours, with service jobs (from retail to agencies) often adding unpaid overtime to that. On the other hand our work laws are pretty employee-friendly (e.g. a mandatory uninterrupted resting period of 24 hours per week in case you have to work on sundays) and larger companies are more likely to follow the letter of the law.
The rules regarding Facebook and private e-mail have more to do with German privacy law: if the private use of work computers is explicitly forbidden, there are less legal landmines involved with intercepting or monitoring Internet use. In practice many places have an informal policy that allows these things, just not officially.
The bit about employees not hanging around after work is also inaccurate. For many people a lot of friendships (and relationships) involve co-workers. In fact, this is one of the reasons there was such an outrage when Walmart tried to implement its US work policies in Germany (which forbade romantic relationships between co-workers -- not that that rule would have held up in German courts to begin with).
There are indeed more days of paid vacation and families do receive preferential treatment when it comes to scheduling vacations during the major holidays or summer break.
The difference when it comes to "Handwerk" is also very striking. Mediocre pay (and rampant moonlighting) aside, craftsmen are generally held in high regard and like most professions take a lot of pride in correctness and precision. This probably again goes hand in hand with Germany having a lot of laws, rules and standards for various fields of work (e.g. you can't just set up a shop as a car varnisher, you need a formal qualification for that).
Also, bureaucracy. Although the sibling is right in that you do usually get the expected result if you follow all the rules, the paperwork can be daunting. Most people joke about the tax law in particular, but we have laws, rules and standards for everything. German law generally tends to define even edge cases clearly rather than leave them up to interpretation by the courts, consequently the legal system tends to be less shady than in the US, but trickier cases can still take years (but on the plus side, they are much cheaper than in the US).
First of all, I find the claim about 35 hours being the average a bit dubious. It may have been the average some years ago, but today it's probably closer to 38-40 hours, with service jobs (from retail to agencies) often adding unpaid overtime to that. On the other hand our work laws are pretty employee-friendly (e.g. a mandatory uninterrupted resting period of 24 hours per week in case you have to work on sundays) and larger companies are more likely to follow the letter of the law.
The rules regarding Facebook and private e-mail have more to do with German privacy law: if the private use of work computers is explicitly forbidden, there are less legal landmines involved with intercepting or monitoring Internet use. In practice many places have an informal policy that allows these things, just not officially.
The bit about employees not hanging around after work is also inaccurate. For many people a lot of friendships (and relationships) involve co-workers. In fact, this is one of the reasons there was such an outrage when Walmart tried to implement its US work policies in Germany (which forbade romantic relationships between co-workers -- not that that rule would have held up in German courts to begin with).
There are indeed more days of paid vacation and families do receive preferential treatment when it comes to scheduling vacations during the major holidays or summer break.
The difference when it comes to "Handwerk" is also very striking. Mediocre pay (and rampant moonlighting) aside, craftsmen are generally held in high regard and like most professions take a lot of pride in correctness and precision. This probably again goes hand in hand with Germany having a lot of laws, rules and standards for various fields of work (e.g. you can't just set up a shop as a car varnisher, you need a formal qualification for that).
Also, bureaucracy. Although the sibling is right in that you do usually get the expected result if you follow all the rules, the paperwork can be daunting. Most people joke about the tax law in particular, but we have laws, rules and standards for everything. German law generally tends to define even edge cases clearly rather than leave them up to interpretation by the courts, consequently the legal system tends to be less shady than in the US, but trickier cases can still take years (but on the plus side, they are much cheaper than in the US).
Also, universal healthcare.