> Working more than 8h overall a day, no matter in how many jobs, is highly illegal.

EU working time directive? You can just opt out of that, and it doesn't apply anyway to lots of jobs like doctors, military etc, so it certainly isn't simply 'highly illegal'.

At least in Germany, there is no legal opt-out. Only in emergencies, and even then only 10h a day.

> Only in emergencies, and even then only 10h a day.

Are you saying that if there's some major medical incident, with medical facilities overwhelmed, hundreds of people needing help, German doctors would just say 'sorry, ten hours, I'm off home to watch TV'. I'm sure that's not true.

The grandparent is slightly wrong. You are allowed to work 10 hours if your average over the next 6 months or 24 weeks does not exceed 8 hours a day. (Where "day" includes Saturdays but excludes Sundays and holidays)

There are a number of exceptions for extraordinary situations, that could not have been anticipated by the employer, to allow exceeding the 10 hours. However the rule about the average in the next 6 months or 24 weeks still applies.

It’s a bit complicated, yeah.

And then there are the exceptions for doctors or nurses, and at that point even lawyers need to look at the text to find out what actually applies.

In rare emergencies, the limit is gone, but then the employee needs at least 2 days of free time after that shift.

I believe only the UK has an opt-out to the WTD.

Personally I refuse to ever opt-out, I have crossed out opt-out clauses in employment contracts, even when I don't think the company was serious about requiring overtime.

In any country with reasonable regulation it's going to be especially illegal, if you're a doctor and certainly not something you can opt out of.

In terms of doctor's working hours 'only 6 of the 27 European member states meet the prescribed standard' (of maximum 8 hours a day) [1].

So either they're opting out of it, the law doesn't apply to them, or they're working illegally. That or you're going to say that most of the countries in the EU don't have 'reasonable regulation'.

[1] http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6920/14/S1/S8

Not, it's just not. You're misinformed. Even if the Working Time Directive was involved (which it's not, if you want to opt out), it limits work to 9.6 hours/day.

Illegal where? Labour regulations are very country-specific. The EU directive covering this is... flexible.

The directive says that working hours should not exceed 48 per week (so this by itself allows working more than 8h a day), plus it's ON AVERAGE, so if you do 60 hours one week and 36 another, it should be okay