> And if companies allow and encourage staying more hours, it creates an environment where people can’t choose to work sane hours.
Yes they can, they just have to accept that they will get compensated and rewarded less than people who generate additional high quality work. That should be fine and is fair; those people working 8 hours are deriving value from other activities. It's not reasonable to say "I demand everyone works 8 hours because I want to work 8 hours and I don't want any ramifications for making that decision".
I've seen research suggesting that workers can get increased productivity working over 40 hours a week for several weeks, but after that, productivity actually goes negative relative to a 40 hour week, because more mistakes are being made that will require rework.
For how much time? There is a clear association between more working hours and more burnout [1] and health problems [2] that can be delayed for decades.
> Yes they can, they just have to accept that they will get compensated and rewarded less than people who generate additional high quality work.
Sorry, but in most places this doesn't happen. I'm lucky to be out of those environments, but the expectation tends to be that everybody works those hours or they're out, even if they're producing the same high quality work (also, I highly doubt that more hours equals more high quality work: productivity decreases after a certain point, specially in software, that's why 6-hour work days are being discussed so much). I still remember a friend being glad that he convinced his manager to "only" work 10 hours a day, because he was literally losing hair due to the extra work. This guy liked what he was doing and at the beginning said "it doesn't matter, I'm happy working these hours.
> It's not reasonable to say "I demand everyone works 8 hours because I want to work 8 hours and I don't want any ramifications for making that decision".
Well, this is the law in most countries in Europe. Overtime is heavily regulated (enforcement is another matter, unfortunately) precisely because business pressure can be disguised as "individual decisions". When a lot of people start working more hours, it puts pressure on people who fulfill their contracted hours, and who might not want or be able to put those extra hours.
In the end, it's a balancing act between giving some people the freedom to work the hours they want and helping the company put pressure on others to do more hours than they were contracted for (in other words, changing their work conditions without negotiation) or give others the freedom to do the job they were hired and paid for without pressure to do more than what was negotiated. Me, I prefer to err on the side of caution and choose the action that doesn't harm the health and well-being of the employees.
1: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/302591873_The_Assoc... 2: https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/24/3/422/477763
Most importantly, it’s not an isolated thing. It’s not just one or two persons doing it: if it were that it wouldn’t be a problem. It’s a generalized culture issue that should be taken seriously and not only viewed in terms of individuals.