I have to say that in Spain, at least, the official workweek hours may be one thing, but the reality is that there's a thriving 'black' economy where your contract with a company states you work a specific number of hours, which is legal, and you get paid for it, and pay taxes on it, and so on. However, you also get paid under the table (usually in cash) for the additional hours you work that are not wrote in your contract but you agreed to have. It's pretty common to find people who receive part of their salary on the books and the rest off the books. This is done so companies can save money on healthcare and other benefits. So, officially, there may be a 36-hour workweek, but the reality can be quite different.
Discussion
interesting, yes, i have heard of things like this before... in australia when i was a kid during the transition to forcing everyone to receive pay through banks a lot of people were paid "under the table" off the books... there still is a lot, but mostly that's brave entrepreneurs like i was for some time in the noughties
never got enough clientele to get anywhere even without paying income taxes, because of the many obstacles to marketing that i faced
for example, in australia, you can't have a motor powered vehicle over 200W... i needed to cover vast distances delivering my advertising and the only practical way was a scooter but that cost me more than i could pay to maintain because of taxes and shit
anyhow, i hate the "white" economy, do they even say that anymore? isn't it racist to call it the "black market" lol????!!!