Anyone tired of answering emails and calls from their boss after work may soon be protected by law in California.
A bill has been introduced in California legislature that would give employees the “right to disconnect” from their jobs during nonworking hours.
Assemblymember Matt Haney of San Francisco first introduced the bill, Assembly Bill 2751 in February, which would allow employees to disconnect from communications from their employer during nonworking hours.
If passed, California would be the first state to create a “right to disconnect” for employees. Similar laws have already been enacted in 13 countries, including Australia, Argentina, Belgium, France, Italy, Mexico, Portugal and Spain.
This isn’t already a right?
In my state being called into work requires a 3 hour minimum payment.
So a manager texting me to go respond to an email would be a 3 hour charge.
Our work culture was set to leave people alone off the clock due to this.
Now that I’m a salary employee I can see this being an issue. When I login in the morning I can see chatter at 11pm on work stuff.
Thankfully I’m not expected to answer to anything until my normal hours.
There needs to be legislation to reign in salary type work as well.
It still needs to be based on hours, like an average of 40 hours per week sort of thing.
Yes your pay cheque will be the same every week for simplicity, but you shouldn’t be expected to work 60 hours just because you’re salary. If you work one week 50 hours, you should be able to tell your boss you are only working 30 hours the next week.
Yeah “evening out hours” is usually referred to flex.
I had a job I literally did 90 hrs then 100 hours and the company gave me ONE day off the week after.
I was drowning and we succeeded. I got minimal recognition, a minor bonus (no where near enough to cover my OT) and only a day off. Spoke with the CEO as part of my kudos and he said we would get me my hours back.
My boss had other plans. Needed the coverage.
I started applying around after that.
I have worked extra hours on salary, because on salary I’m being paid for the work, not the time. If I didn’t complete the work, I need to keep working. But that’s the fault of my own time management or inability to foresee the complexity of the task or estimate it’s workload properly.
Hourly gigs for me are always time constrained. You tell me my weekly shift before I sign and I tell you under what circumstances I’ll work OT (including rate, advanced notice, etc.) otherwise we have no deal.
I understand that not everyone is presented with the same choice or available opportunities, and my heart goes out to them.
Pfft, I’ve had friends who worked fast food jobs where they regularly got called in during their off hours/days. From what they told me, they had to commit to not just answering the phone, but showing up anytime their employer asked them to, no scheduling or prior notice required. This was apparently something they could get fired over refusing. It’s bonkers.
This is in the US, but not California.
Yup, my old grocery store required this as a part of being full-time. You couldn’t refuse a shift, couldn’t swap hours, and had to be able to come in when asked unless the absence was preplanned or a medical emergency.
Needless to say, almost all of the full-time people had no lives outside work, at all.
Middle Managers in shambles over this
“But how will I get my rocks off to knowing I can strangle my underlings with infinite meaningless metrics‽”
Is it really a widespread thing for people to get in trouble for not doing this? I’ve never answered an email or phone call while off work or on vacation and not once has anyone brought it up. The only people I see doing this are the people that do it of their own free will.
Is it really a widespread thing for people to get in trouble for not doing this
Yeah it is. Remember the whole “quiet quitting” bullshit panic? That was about people doing this and bosses (plus the pro-corporate billionaire-owned mainstream media) pretending that it was the death knell of businesses.
I’ve never answered an email or phone call while off work or on vacation and not once has anyone brought it up
Good. That’s exactly how it should be. If they’re not paying you for it, you’re not on call. That should be a given.
The only people I see doing this are the people that do it of their own free will
Unfortunately, that’s far from true. Lack of regulations. An obscene power imbalance stemming mainly from lack of unionization. A business culture that heavily encourages ruthless exploitation.
These conditions combine to make many if not most bosses abuse their workers in any and every way not specifically illegal and oftentimes even THAT doesn’t stop them.
This law and effective enforcement of it is VITAL for labor rights and the mental health of workers
Imagine what hellscape would need this to be a law
Ultimately, it should be a law. Companies will always want to exploit their workers whenever possible, and the entire point of a government is to enforce the will of the people against things like corporations that are too big for any single person to fight. It’s basically the concept of “If you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to fear,” but applying it to companies instead of people, because the people should be free, not the corporations.
I never give my personal phone number to coworkers, and my work laptop is shut down for the night
California trying to make life better for workers. I’m here for it.