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New York Councilman Proposes Bill That Would Grant NYC Workers 'Right To Disconnect' (vice.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: New York City councilman Rafael Espinal released a "Right to Disconnect" bill on Thursday, advocating for the rights of employees to stop answering work-related emails and other digital messages, like texts, after official work hours. "Our work lives have spilled into our personal lives because of technology," he told me. "It's time we unblur and strike a clear line." Brooklyn-based Espinal said he got the idea from France, where a bill passed early last year by the Ministry of Labor requires companies of over 50 employees to define out-of-office email rules. He wanted to create a similar guideline so that workers would not be penalized for disconnecting after work hours. But that's France -- known for joie de vivre -- and this is New York, known for not sleeping.
Answering work emails after work hours, or during weekends, or on vacation, has become par for the course here, and across the US. Statistics rarely account for the extra hours spent managing post-office work -- by most official counts, Americans work the same number of hours -- around 39 to 47 per week -- just as we did in the 1950s. But those of us living it know this isn't true: technology has completely changed the way we work, and burnout is rampant among American workers. If Espinal were able to implement the bill, it would face similar challenges to its European counterparts. Critics say the legislation in France has no teeth, and companies are still allowed to define their own guidelines, leaving room for exploitation. And the New York version of the "Right to Disconnect" bill includes exemptions for jobs that require 24-hour on-call periods.
Answering work emails after work hours, or during weekends, or on vacation, has become par for the course here, and across the US. Statistics rarely account for the extra hours spent managing post-office work -- by most official counts, Americans work the same number of hours -- around 39 to 47 per week -- just as we did in the 1950s. But those of us living it know this isn't true: technology has completely changed the way we work, and burnout is rampant among American workers. If Espinal were able to implement the bill, it would face similar challenges to its European counterparts. Critics say the legislation in France has no teeth, and companies are still allowed to define their own guidelines, leaving room for exploitation. And the New York version of the "Right to Disconnect" bill includes exemptions for jobs that require 24-hour on-call periods.
The company pays me for the hours I work
Ah, you're on wages. If you ever become salaried, you'll find out that this isn't how it works for better paying positions.
If a client four time zones away calls and need help, I'm not going to jeopardize a big contract and not just my own job but others' too, including those on wages, by declining to take the call.
I'm compensated extra for the willingness to do what it takes, whether it's during office hours or not. They pay for me doing my job, not my hours. That also means that if I need to do something, and there's not any pressing matters at work, I simply walk out and do it, without holding my hat in my hand asking a big boss. They get more than enough of my work, and my salary and bonuses reflect this.
Just because you do it doesn't mean others do. I worked salary for most of my career and any after hours I had to attend were balanced by a reduction of standard hours. Do your job, do it well, and you can do this.
> any after hours I had to attend were balanced by a reduction of standard hours
This has not been the case for many of the years I've worked personally, and many of the senior roles I've filled. It's at the core of much of the "glass ceiling" women experience for senior roles, they've been much less willing than men to work in roles that require it. It's also part of age discrimination for men my age in technology experience when we are no longer willing or able to be on call 24x7. I'm personally just now finishing an after hours deployment: it needed to occur after business hours, and I had to supervise it. But the compensatory time needed is larger for me and men my age than it is for many of my younger colleagues. We can't spend the next day up at 7:00 AM for remote telecommuting with Europe or Asia, or due to family schedules. The physical and mental toll is more burdensome, as well as the toll of doing mixed schedules with remote colleagues. Even the toll of hopping schedule from one schedule for weekend deployments and weekday business meetings increases.
Look in any network operations center, and any supervisory or senior engineer role that requires off-hours or awkwardly scheduled work. The age and gender skew towards younger men are enormous.
Some jobs need that. Nuclear, chemical, medical, computer experts.
Actually: NO!
For safety reasons I prefer fresh workers taking over the work of the previous shift instead letting the previous shift work over time ... nuclear ... are you insane?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
If I were ever required or expected to work after hours, then that's a "thanks, but no thanks" - There are plenty of jobs out there. You want me to work in the evening? You pay me for that. The more idiots who accept to be bullied, the more bullying there will be. I consider myself lucky not have been born in the US, where it seems slavery never ended, after all