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Seoul Considers Messaging Ban After Work Hours (thestack.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The city legislature of Seoul, South Korea, is considering implementing a law that would ban after work messaging to employees, in an effort to reduce work-related stress among employees. Members of the Seoul Metropolitan Council proposed a revision to a public ordinance that would ban after-work messaging to employees of the city's government. The new rule is an attempt to guarantee employees the right to restand states that employee privacy must not be subject to employer contact outside of work hours. If passed, it would ban managers from contacting public sector employees after work hours through phone calls, text messaging, or social networking. Kim Kwang-soo, one of the councilors who submitted the ordinance revision, said that the Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) must guarantee the rights of city workers by protecting them from undue stress. He said, "Of course SMG officials must always be prepared for the needs of citizens, but many of them are working under conditions that infringe on their right to rest."
I spent a few years working for a Canadian municipality. Work COULD contact you after hours, but you were getting paid OT (with a minimum for hour much time you got to claim, even if the actual work was only 30 seconds). If you actually got called back into work you got to claim a minimum of 4 hours (at time and a half, so really 6 hours) even if it was only 15 minutes of work. This setup allowed our workplace to deal with emergencies, but the high cost to the employer made sure it was only used for mission-critical things.
Perhaps consider leaving. Jerks be jerks.
If you otherwise like the work and company, then perhaps you can write up a nice diplomatic and complementing letter explaining that you otherwise enjoy working there, but that your "home tether" requirement is not being fairly compensated in your opinion, because it limits your off-work choices.
Table-ized A.I.