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Work Emails After Hours Finally Banned in France (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:
A new French law establishing workers' "right to disconnect" goes into effect today. The law requires companies with more than 50 employees to establish hours when staff should not send or answer emails. The goals of the law include making sure employees are fairly paid for work, and preventing burnout by protecting private time. French legislator Benoit Hamon, speaking to the BBC, described the law as an answer to the travails of employees who "leave the office, but they do not leave their work. They remain attached by a kind of electronic leash -- like a dog."
The BBC reports that France already has a 35-hour work week, while Fortune adds that many European companies have already taken steps to curtail after-work emails. "In 2012, Volkswagen blocked all emails to employees' Blackberries after-hours," and "Daimler took the step of deleting all emails received by employees while on vacation."
The BBC reports that France already has a 35-hour work week, while Fortune adds that many European companies have already taken steps to curtail after-work emails. "In 2012, Volkswagen blocked all emails to employees' Blackberries after-hours," and "Daimler took the step of deleting all emails received by employees while on vacation."
Note how this only applies to companies over 50 people.
Yup. There are already a lot of French rules that kick in at the "50 employee" threshold, which is why there are so many French companies with 49 employees, and why French companies in general fail to grow. If you look at all the Fortune 500 companies that were founded in the last 30 years, more than half are American. Zero are French.
This isn't about protecting "worker rights". If it were, it would apply to all employers. It is just the typical French desire to punish success. If an American and a Frenchman both see someone drive by in a Mercedes, the American thinks, "Someday, I'll have a car like that". The Frenchman thinks "Someday, I'm going to make that guy get out of his car and walk like everyone else."