New York Councilman Proposes Bill That Would Grant NYC Workers 'Right To Disconnect' (vice.com) 94
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.
Re:Sheeples (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Sheeples (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sheeples (Score:5, Insightful)
> 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.
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It's exploitation of young men, pure and simple.
What I can't understand is why some people blame anyone but the employers for this. As if it's a good thing almost, and older guys/women are to blame for not sacrificing their health.
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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.
It's often more about company policies than how well you do your job.
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If you don't enjoy your work, I understand that. However, some of us enjoy our work (and, if we don't, we change jobs so we do). I can't imagine "counting hours" like a hourly employee -- it would limit my flexibility to do self initiated projects, get stuff off my plate so I could pursue projects I have a passion for, but not a mandate to do etc.
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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.
So do I, it's called overtime pay. I'll work all night and weekends too for +50/100%. Maybe in the US people on wages are just office drones that walk out when the work day is over no matter what, but that's not normal in other countries. And you know we still have to negotiate for base pay raises and promotions, if you're not there when it counts don't expect to see much of those. Maybe you're one of the few that actually belong in the salaried category with real power and freedom to decide how to do your
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I know of no state where "salaried" personnel get paid overtime. The workplace may authorize compensation time. But overtime for senior developer, systems, DevOps, or technical managerial personnel. Even for hourly private contractors, I do not see overtime. In what what private industry. non-union field are you seeing overtime paid?
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I know of no state where "salaried" personnel get paid overtime. The workplace may authorize compensation time. But overtime for senior developer, systems, DevOps, or technical managerial personnel. Even for hourly private contractors, I do not see overtime. In what what private industry. non-union field are you seeing overtime paid?
I'm in one of those "other countries" I was talking about, more specifically Norway:
Maybe in the US people on wages are just office drones that walk out when the work day is over no matter what, but that's not normal in other countries.
Here's the rules here:
Exceptions to overtime rules
The rules on working hours and overtime are basically applicable to all employees, but there are exceptions for employees who have:
Leading position
Leading positions mean senior positions with clear management functions. Examples of such positions may be head of department, office managers and others such as:
Particularly independent position
By specially independent position is meant workers who do not have direct managerial functions but who still have senior and responsible positions. This concerns an employee who himself prioritises his tasks, they decide what to do, what to delegate to others, when the work is to be done and how the work is to be done. Even if an employee is exempted from these provisions, working hours must nevertheless be arranged such that:
The first one requires a real management position with subordinates and a business unit, you can't just slap a "team lead" or "architect" label on someone and make them exempt because they direct. I know even shift leaders in manufacturing is not exempt because they have to be there when the shift runs, they don't really have any more freedom than the shift workers just a bit more responsibility. My dep
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It's not a US thing. I'm salaried, but frequently get compensated for extra hours. Most likely because this time is billable to our customers.
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In my experience (all in the USA) and in, one form or the other, systems software development (such as database kernels and storage systems targeted at use in large enterprises), the best developers tend to take pride in their work and enjoy it - in fact, part of the "compensation" is having an environment to engage in that work.
Sure, there are parts one hates - mostly because they occur at 2AM. But the customer is king (they are why your paycheck clears the bank and are the reason you get to do interesting
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Translation: you were happy to sacrifice your time so the company could make more money, without you being appropriately compensated in return. How very Calvinist of you.
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Only to radical centrist fanatics.
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If you're so happy to work hard beyond 40 hours a week, giving your labor to someone else with little in return - why aren't you flying the hammer and sickle?
Re: Sheeples (Score:1)
Proper cover would mean people working after 5pm. Canâ(TM)t have your cake and eat it too.
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If you ever become salaried, you'll find out that this isn't how it works for better paying positions.
I'm interested to know why you think those positions are "better paying" in the first place.
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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.
Then the company should be paying someone (possibly you) to take calls during those hours.
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If you're paid a salary, you are almost certainly not compensated for your overtime. Any hours you put past your 40 hour obligation, is free labor as far as the shareholders are concerned.
With "real" salaried positions (i.e. not the unscrupulous use of "salaried" to get around overtime laws that many companies do), it's not about hours at all. Hours doesn't come into it. You're paid to do a job, not the number of work hours you spend to do it.
Some weeks I can do my job in less time than most regularly paid workers, and if I feel like it, take on other work too. And if I don't, and don't care about a potential pay raise, I can go fish instead. Other weeks, I work more time than most regul
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Just Let the Market Take Care of Things (Score:3)
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At the least, when you answer an email, that begins a quarter hour of paid time. More if answering it takes longer.
When you answer the phone, same thing. And more if you were woken up. At least a half an hour.
With an option for the company to let you take comp time during normal hours to avoid having to pay for the time. (And of course escrow money to pay for any time outstanding if you are fired or laid off).
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Lawsuits. That's how you enforce most things. If it's made illegal by the bill, you notify the company - if they continue, you get a lawyer and seek punitive compensation.
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Title heavy on the irony. Came here expecting something moronic. Was surprised to find an interesting comment instead.
The right to disconnect is an obvious idea and common sense. Which means of course republicans will be fighting it tooth and nail. Humans have this amazing ability to guide our lives through thinking and not purely instinct. How republican voters choose to use this gift: "let's live like ants, working our a** off all day all the time until we die"
My take on this (Score:2)
Stories like this prove the US is nowhere near full employment. We will be at full employment when employees feel comfortable saying no to working nights and weekends.
Who does that? (Score:3, Informative)
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I guess people who are in a weaker bargaining position, or who have a tougher time standing up for their own rights?
Saying things like that is a bit easier when you have more experience (both life and work experience). I'm not sure I approve of handing this over to the government to regulate, but there are definitely employers who will try to take advantage of their workers. I'm in the videogame industry, so naturally I know of plenty of examples of people being forced to work very long hours for no addit
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Why is a city pushing work out that should have been done? Should be worked on by the next shift of workers?
Some contractors also sell their workers to a city and as part of that winning bid have to always be ready for work.
Re:Who does that? (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
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Whats why most advanced nation ensured the needed experts had a landline phone that would be just for a call from work.
The alarms sound and the nuclear priesthood is called back to work to help the shift at work.
Thats during an emergency situation angel'o'sphere and why very good communications networks got supported all over the USA for many decades.
Why a modern city would be pushing everyday digital work like emails to n
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Should you plan to get your work done in a limited time, or should you be prepared to work outside the allotted time?
Yes. Both.
Saying "this happens in the real world" is no excuse for not managing work properly. You have to be prepared for shit to happen, but you shouldn't allow shit to become your normal mode of operation.
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The topic is not about emergencies but about managers that assign extra work during the off time of their employees via email etc.
Thats during an emergency situation angel'o'sphere and why very good communications networks got supported all over the USA for many decades. /. often enough to know that the USA networks are barely better than 3rd world countries ...
Well, I read
So what is your point?
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Because the managers are idiots.
Plain and simple.
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Any job that involved email, off as soon as I walked out the door. My time is my time. Some have complained that I didn't reply at 10pm at night, I don't get on-call pay so I don't answer.
All things considered, modernizing the laws for on-call pay probably would fix this problem very quickly--especially if the laws explicitly state that, unless agreed upon by both parties, if the employer expects you to answer the phone/email/texts and do work at all hours, then you are to be paid as if you are always on-call.
Instead of making it illegal, make it expensive.
I can't help but wonder... (Score:2)
I can't help but wonder if New York City councilman Rafael Espinal's staff will be allowed to opt-out of after-hours emails without consequences?
I suspect not, just as OSHA regulations don't apply to congressional staffers.
Post-Office Work (Score:4, Funny)
across the US. Statistics rarely account for the extra hours spent managing post-office work
Well, why would they? For most people, the extra hours spent managing the post-office is not all that significant.
In the old days (Score:2)
Later generations had a pager.
People with needed skills remained in contact in the past.
Doing emails and work related digital messages sounds like the city has not hired enough people on merit.
Skilled people get their work done during their work shift.
Then another shift of skilled people take over with the ability to get more work done.
Try finding people who can do the work without having to send more work out
what about more unions and UBI (Score:1)
what about more unions and UBI
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what about more unions and UBI
Generally my union is okay with the fact that my pay reflects that I answer the phone after hours.
Flexible working (Score:1)
Personally I find doing code reviews in the evening relaxing.
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So, either get your evenings defined as normal work hours, or do code reviews for OSS projects. Seems easy to understand to me.
Re: Flexible working (Score:1)
I am a freelancer and I choose my own flexible hours. Some days I prefer to take a few hours for lunch and catch up in the evening. If I send an email late at night I donâ(TM)t expect a response till the morning.
If you Slack me in the evening Iâ(TM)ll assume your making up time on something and if a quick response is going to sort you out, then happy to help.
What I wonâ(TM)t do is call you out of normal hours, as you donâ(TM)t have a choice to respond to that.
I would take the odd out of
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Slavery, nothing but slavery (Score:3, Insightful)
So do you want flexible hours or to be told you ha (Score:1)
This goes both ways, I have always been happy to answer the odd call, slack message outside my normal hours. In a flexible work culture not everyone works the same office hours as you. It doesnâ(TM)t take much to write a quick reply and then switch off again. No big deal.
Strange (Score:2)
Does that mean New Yorkers don't have the right to put their work cellphones in the office drawer when they leave?
I guess they don't have global teams (Score:2)
I've worked on many projects with global teams. Meetings commonly happen during work hours in different time zones.