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.
Me getting called four times a night by random coworkers asking for random shit:
Worker protections are necessary. Without them our employers would all treat us like Frieza did Krillin
I never give my personal phone number to coworkers, and my work laptop is shut down for the night
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.
Can you imagine being on a global operations team in California? Looks like a bunch of job openings
It just means that employers will have to pay employees for the work they perform. I dont think there will be major changes. It will just require companies to better define the hours their employees are expected to be working.
Again, ops teams usually work way overtime. California is special because we don’t really have an overlapping working time with Asia or EU. This means we either have to not work a regular 9-5 time zone or the company is going to have to open a bunch of positions to make up for the difference.
Care to describe what you’re calling “ops” or do you think your company’s technobabble means something?
ops teams usually work way overtime
Then those workers are entitled to overtime pay and for those overtime hours to be clearly defined and adhered by. That really shouldn’t be so hard to grasp.