11 ms·

French workers win legal right to avoid checking work email out-of-hours

164 points by DLay 10y ago

hacknat 10y ago
I barely check work email at work. One of the nice things about having slack, at least at my company, is that no one seems to communicate outside of business hours anymore.
- nfriedly 10y ago
  My team has largely switched to slack as well. Initially I had it installed in my phone, and so then I would look at it anytime I got a message, even outside of work hours. I wiped and reset my phone recently, and apparently IBM has upped the security requirements to sign into Slack since I first set it up: now I can't sign in on my phone for an undisclosed reason. (Probably because its rooted, I know that's why I'm not allowed to have my work email on my phone.) It's been kind of nice, honestly.
  - literallycancer 10y ago
    How do they know the phone is rooted if you are just getting emails? Or do you mean they don't like it when you do, but have no way to really know?
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      I don't know about rooted but Microsoft's Exchange App on Android demands that it becomes a device admin so it can remotely delete everything on your phone if your company desires. There is an app called MailWise[0] that will allow you to get around that though. I did this as my company pays for my phone nor my service yet demands I install their email on my personal device. [0]http://support.mail-wise.com/knowledgebase/articles/391797-what-is-exchange-security-bypass-and-how-to-use-it http://support.mail-wise.com/knowledgebase/articles/391797-w...
      - RHSeeger 10y ago
        My wife had a similar problem at work a while ago. Policies changed and the company required the ability to wipe her phone in order to get email on it. She basically told the company that, if they wanted her to have access to email/calendar on her phone (given that requirement), they would need to provide her with a company phone. She went for a couple months without access to email/calendar (when not at the computer) and then they provided a company phone. Giving your company (or anyone) total access to your personal phone is insane. Your phone, with access to your email, is effectively a master key to your life. Through it, they have the ability to do almost anything to you (reset your bank password and take all your money, etc).
      - swiley 10y ago
        At my university this is the only officially supported way to access your email on Android, that was pretty horrifying when I was a freshman (so much so that I went without email on my phone for the entire first semester.) If you hunt around enough though you can find the parameters needed to use IMAP.
    - krzyk 10y ago
      It's probably a domain (as e.g. in Windows Domain, not DNS) setting that forces given phone to have a certain permissions before allowing integration with corporate services (including email), but usually it doesn't have a way to discover a rooted phone. On the contrary you can disable other rules - like enforcement of PIN (if you know how) if you have a rooted phone.
    - pikzen 10y ago
      If he's on Android, the app can use SafetyNet[0] and rather accurately detect rooted devices, or even devices with bootloader unlocked. [0]https://developer.android.com/training/safetynet/index.html https://developer.android.com/training/safetynet/index.html
    - grogenaut 10y ago
      many enterprises run a security requirements check before allowing corp email or other communications on. One of the checks is "is rooted" which android reports via api. This usually disabled access. Another is "full disk encryption", and "boot password". This is what big co I work at requires. Also small co we bought required it for 2fa on vpn. They also want remote wipe capabilities. Exchange does this on phones too by domain. But the place I work has a sidecar app that constantly monitors the phone and locks it out if the rules are violated, with is usually accidental by user or a sign of an attack. I'm fine with not doing so as I don't want bigco's email on my phone, it's super spammy. It's more of a todo list than actual communications, forever base lining permissions.
    - nfriedly 10y ago
      In my case, they don't have publicly accessible email servers* - I have to run a VPN client. That client ensures all of the security policies are met before allowing me to connect. It's the same on my laptop and iPad. * POP/IMAP/webmail/etc. Obviously the incomming SMTP server is publicly accessible, but that doesn't help me.
rahrahrah 10y ago
France as usual leading in workers' rights.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  I thought Germany already had this? Or was that just cultural rather than legal?
  - Barrin92 10y ago
    No legal framework for this here in Germany, but most companies tend to keep this stuff to a minimum, yes.
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  More like France catching up to the US. This is already the law in the US for hourly employees, which is what the new law in France is scoped to.
  - mhurron 10y ago
    That's funny. Most people who are working in a place where they would be pressured to continue doing work after hours are not paid hourly. And then there is those long term contractors that are hourly but basically on a fixed number of hours per week who still are 'encouraged' to do what little extra is needed to get this project done so their contract can be renewed for the next one once they've shown they can be counted on.
    - chimeracoder 10y ago
      > That's funny. Most people who are working in a place where they would be pressured to continue doing work after hours are not paid hourly Whether or not they are paid hourly, as long as they are not classified as exempt, they are entitled to overtime pay. (Tech workers are classified as exempt in California, which is indeed a problem and IMHO a mistake, but that's a much smaller issue) > And then there is those long term contractors that are hourly but basically on a fixed number of hours per week... Well, that's a bad way to write a contract, but even so, that's a totally different situation because they're not even an employee. And the French law referenced in the original article wouldn't apply in that situation either.
yason 10y ago
I've generally considered out-of-hours checks to emanate from employees. There will always be employees who want to do a bit of extra, stay a bit longer, answer emails at 10pm, to help make progress in their career and get promotions. Now, you obviously can't prevent these people from doing that without disabling corporate accounts and door access between 5pm-9am. So there will be people doing that, to appear in better light than others. The practice just spreads to less ambitious employees as well, and then to less motivated ones. While I support that you should be able to cut off work after the day is done and switch to your free time I don't see how you could regulate something like that. To even try you would have to ban giving promotions to people who work some extra for their employer (remove the incentive to do extra) or give some sort of employment protection to people who do disconnect (pretty much like you can't fire an employee who's pregnant or on parental leave because such is collectively agreed to be worth some serious shitstorm). In the end, the only enforcement I can think of is that each person needs to make that decision themselves. If they value their free time and life outside work then they must equally deprioritise work in their life, to the extent where they might be fired because they will disconnect from work outside of the hours agreed, and then find an employer who shares the same values. If good employees do that, employers will have to realise that in order to retain or get good employees they must give in and let the employees enjoy their free time in peace. Now, the only problem is that there is always someone more hungry for money than you, willing to sacrifice more than you. The remaining question is that which people are the majority.
- kuschku 10y ago
  Considering you have to pay people usually 1.5x or 2x their normal wage out of normal work hours in most of Europe, most employers just literally do that – and shove their employees out the door.
  - chimeracoder 10y ago
    > Considering you have to pay people usually 1.5x or 2x their normal wage out of normal work hours in most of Europe The same is true in the US. The only difference is that California considers tech workers to be exempt. But other industries and in other states, this still applies.
muninn_ 10y ago
You don't have to do it in the United States, it's just that your coworkers will. In reality it has never made a difference for me. I can quickly scan my email inbox and if anything is urgent and important it's known that you should either call or speak to me in person.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
ptaipale 10y ago
I'm not exactly sure this is "winning a right". It's something that makes it more difficult to serve customers.
- ghostDancer 10y ago
  Out of hours? So you should check email at 03.00 just in case some insomniac customer needs something that you can't probably fix/send/prepare till next day. That's called slavery even if it's volunteer.
  - minipci1321 10y ago
    > 'insomniac customer' ... Many companies these days have branches in all parts of the world. 1) Out of hours for oneself could be perfectly office hours for the customer. 2) you might be the only person knowing this part of the product or tech, and all is required could be just a quick yes/no answer. I am not advocating for either side, but please -- the world is more complex than it seems.
    - ghostDancer 10y ago
      Then my boss should contract some people that can service that customer during their work hours and the rest I'll answer the customer in my work hours, that's what i'm paid for, if my boss wants me 24 hour service he/she should pay me for it, otherwise it's voluntary slavery. They pay me to do my work during my hours not to be at his/her wishes.
      - minipci1321 10y ago
        > Then my boss should contract some people that can service that customer during their work hours... See my pt 2. > if my boss wants me 24 hour service he/she should pay me for it... I think your boss wants result from you, not any random metrics like 24 h/on the job. If you consider that you are underpaid for the result you have been delivering -- have you demanded a raise?
benmarks 10y ago
Will be interested to see studies of cultural effects as time goes on.
iagooar 10y ago
To all fellow software engineers out there: STOP reading company emails after work ALREADY! I don't care what your boss has told you or what your co-workers do. Just don't do it. Warning: this only applies to regular office workers, not management or freelancers. Are you getting paid for checking company emails after working hours? You are not, right? How is offering your limited, private time FOR FREE to a company worth it? Is your private life SO boring, you need to do something that many of us do not even like doing during office hours? Are you afraid to be the only one in your team to bring some sanity? Do you think your boss is going to respect you less if you put clear boundaries between work and private life? Do you think you might lose your job if you don't check emails at all hours? Might be time to start looking for a new job... I know, this post is a bit on the rough side, but I'm just trying to challenge the status quo for some people. I have personally met a lot of good, nice people who would think that they MUST do stuff for the company for free, after hours. Without any good reason. Actually, I had this one colleague who would check emails even very late at night, and if there was someone reporting a bug would jump in and try to fix it. And guess what? Countless times his code was really bad and it caused many more issues than it intended to solve in the first place.
- mhurron 10y ago
  > not management If management isn't also not reading mail/doing work after office hours than the whole thing falls apart.
  - iagooar 10y ago
    Yes, but I don't care what managers do, they have other incentives and their time is (and should be) tracked differently.
    - mhurron 10y ago
      Managers manage people. If they are working, they require other people working to do their job. Basically if they business isn't onboard with the idea of not working after hours, it won't happen and those that try to force it risk being replaced with people that 'fit the company culture.'
draw_down 10y ago
Same shit, different toilet.
- dang 10y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13291386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13291386 and marked it off-topic.
grantlmiller 10y ago
Making it harder to fire employees for another reason might protect the existing jobs, but it lacks the foresight to understand that these practices simply disincentivize employers from making future hires in the country. As a result, this is another move by the French gov to protect the status quo. The French labor market has already been regulated to the point of anti-competitiveness. This immediately hurts younger workers who are willing to work harder than their entrenched counterparts, but instead find themselves unemployed at a rate nearing 25%. More business as usual for paternalistic government lawmakers.
- yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
  But in this case the alternative is to punish workers for having work/life balance. The "younger workers who are willing to work harder than their entrenched counterparts" are an actively harmful influence, and all this does is level the playing field.
  - smallnamespace 10y ago
    > The "younger workers who are willing to work harder than their entrenched counterparts" are an actively harmful influence Even if that's true, the solution should not be to actively penalize young workers, which this might do.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
      Given that the rule is uniform, I'm curious how younger workers are penalized? I'd expect everyone to benefit here.
- yuhong 10y ago
  I once suggested a compromise of limiting US-style anti-discrimination laws to manual labor and similar jobs.
- ArkyBeagle 10y ago
  Since when is being on call 24/7 "competitive"? I associate it with people who provide public-service type services - doctors, first responders, electric utility workers, even cable TV/modem techs.
jaypaulynice 10y ago
Agree with this. Best thing I ever did was remove all work related apps from my phone. That way I only checked email if I'm on the laptop. More advantages include: saving on your phone bills, storage on your phone, employers spying on you, and of course your sanity. Doing this, I found that most "urgent" emails were not really urgent. Also if there is ever a lawsuit for whatever, the company has a right to seize your phone if there is company content on it.
- popotamonga 10y ago
  Same here, if it's really that urgent someone will eventually call.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    I like how old tech limitations acted as a natural weighting. Now with everything possible all the time we somehow loss an important source of information.
    - ashark 10y ago
      I was just thinking about that the other day, as it relates to kids and TV. You definitely can still limit children's TV watching, but they're not dumb, and it takes more effort now that they know you could play an episode of their favorite show on Netflix any time you please than when your hands were tied by the broadcast schedule. "Sorry, you'll have to wait for next Saturday" was an easier sell when it was impossible for you to do anything about it (well, tape, but if you hadn't already recorded it there was nothing that could be done after the fact).
      - agumonkey 10y ago
        I meant more about value attached to signals. Before if someone came to see you it meant they made some effort compares to a SMS. Now that everything is the same, lines are blurred and we feel overwhelmed.
- 10y ago
rahrahrah 10y ago
France catching up to the US HAHAHAHAHAHA You realise that "workers rights" is not given by a single data point, yeah? Even if in this specific case the US has it right, saying that "France is catching up to the US" is ludicrous.
- dang 10y ago
  > France catching up to the US HAHAHAHAHAHA Please don't do this here. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13291684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13291684 and marked it off-topic.
  - mSparks 10y ago
    please take your life somewhere else.
  - rahrahrah 10y ago
    You're doing a shitty job then, because it's very much on-topic.
deavmi 10y ago
Great to hear!
aminok 10y ago
Ridiculous. You have a moral right to refuse to enter into an employment contract that obligates you to respond to emails out-of-hours. You do not have a moral right to prohibit business owners from offering employment terms that include an obligation to respond to emails out of regular work hours. Once again, demagoguery wins over human rights. And people wonder why Europe's economic growth rate has steadily stagnated over the last forty years. The answer is social (demagogic) democracy.
- mnm1 10y ago
  I think what's more ridiculous is unpaid overtime and letting employers, who naturally have the upper hand in any employment negotiation, set the rules for all employees in the exploitive manner the US does.
  - aminok 10y ago
    People have every right to refuse to enter into an employment contract that imposes such obligations. What they don't have a right to do is deny employers the right to offer any terms they want. You're promoting authoritarian infringements on the right of consenting adults to engage in voluntary interactions.
    - franzen 10y ago
      Yes indeed, and it's also a disgrace that children lack the freedom to work! Many children want to work in factories, why let the state interfere? Absolute bollocks.
      - aminok 10y ago
        Children are not "consenting adults", but in any case, child labour was essential for survival in the 19th century, because productivity was much lower than it is today. If you were to invade Myanmar today, and impose a social democratic government that bans child labour, the result would be an increase in mortality. Child labour only became unnecessary as a result of economic development increasing the average level of wealth in society. Going back to the article, it's telling that you're trying to justify the authoritarian prohibition by comparing adults to children. Your ideology sees ordinary people as effectively children, and the state as their parent.
ankitap 10y ago
There is a discussion about this going on my company whatsapp group and all are talking about how good it is to respond to emails at any time of day or night. The company has a culture of pushing people to work more and more? Think you have too much in your hands? Guess what, everyone else does as well so it's no big deal. Sometimes I feel I am in the wrong type of company

164 points by DLay 10y ago

I barely check work email at work. One of the nice things about having slack, at least at my company, is that no one seems to communicate outside of business hours anymore.

nfriedly 10y ago
My team has largely switched to slack as well. Initially I had it installed in my phone, and so then I would look at it anytime I got a message, even outside of work hours. I wiped and reset my phone recently, and apparently IBM has upped the security requirements to sign into Slack since I first set it up: now I can't sign in on my phone for an undisclosed reason. (Probably because its rooted, I know that's why I'm not allowed to have my work email on my phone.) It's been kind of nice, honestly.
- literallycancer 10y ago
  How do they know the phone is rooted if you are just getting emails? Or do you mean they don't like it when you do, but have no way to really know?
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    I don't know about rooted but Microsoft's Exchange App on Android demands that it becomes a device admin so it can remotely delete everything on your phone if your company desires. There is an app called MailWise[0] that will allow you to get around that though. I did this as my company pays for my phone nor my service yet demands I install their email on my personal device. [0]http://support.mail-wise.com/knowledgebase/articles/391797-what-is-exchange-security-bypass-and-how-to-use-it http://support.mail-wise.com/knowledgebase/articles/391797-w...
    - RHSeeger 10y ago
      My wife had a similar problem at work a while ago. Policies changed and the company required the ability to wipe her phone in order to get email on it. She basically told the company that, if they wanted her to have access to email/calendar on her phone (given that requirement), they would need to provide her with a company phone. She went for a couple months without access to email/calendar (when not at the computer) and then they provided a company phone. Giving your company (or anyone) total access to your personal phone is insane. Your phone, with access to your email, is effectively a master key to your life. Through it, they have the ability to do almost anything to you (reset your bank password and take all your money, etc).
    - swiley 10y ago
      At my university this is the only officially supported way to access your email on Android, that was pretty horrifying when I was a freshman (so much so that I went without email on my phone for the entire first semester.) If you hunt around enough though you can find the parameters needed to use IMAP.
  - krzyk 10y ago
    It's probably a domain (as e.g. in Windows Domain, not DNS) setting that forces given phone to have a certain permissions before allowing integration with corporate services (including email), but usually it doesn't have a way to discover a rooted phone. On the contrary you can disable other rules - like enforcement of PIN (if you know how) if you have a rooted phone.
  - pikzen 10y ago
    If he's on Android, the app can use SafetyNet[0] and rather accurately detect rooted devices, or even devices with bootloader unlocked. [0]https://developer.android.com/training/safetynet/index.html https://developer.android.com/training/safetynet/index.html
  - grogenaut 10y ago
    many enterprises run a security requirements check before allowing corp email or other communications on. One of the checks is "is rooted" which android reports via api. This usually disabled access. Another is "full disk encryption", and "boot password". This is what big co I work at requires. Also small co we bought required it for 2fa on vpn. They also want remote wipe capabilities. Exchange does this on phones too by domain. But the place I work has a sidecar app that constantly monitors the phone and locks it out if the rules are violated, with is usually accidental by user or a sign of an attack. I'm fine with not doing so as I don't want bigco's email on my phone, it's super spammy. It's more of a todo list than actual communications, forever base lining permissions.
  - nfriedly 10y ago
    In my case, they don't have publicly accessible email servers* - I have to run a VPN client. That client ensures all of the security policies are met before allowing me to connect. It's the same on my laptop and iPad. * POP/IMAP/webmail/etc. Obviously the incomming SMTP server is publicly accessible, but that doesn't help me.

rahrahrah 10y ago

France as usual leading in workers' rights.

kalleboo 10y ago
I thought Germany already had this? Or was that just cultural rather than legal?
- Barrin92 10y ago
  No legal framework for this here in Germany, but most companies tend to keep this stuff to a minimum, yes.
chimeracoder 10y ago
More like France catching up to the US. This is already the law in the US for hourly employees, which is what the new law in France is scoped to.
- mhurron 10y ago
  That's funny. Most people who are working in a place where they would be pressured to continue doing work after hours are not paid hourly. And then there is those long term contractors that are hourly but basically on a fixed number of hours per week who still are 'encouraged' to do what little extra is needed to get this project done so their contract can be renewed for the next one once they've shown they can be counted on.
  - chimeracoder 10y ago
    > That's funny. Most people who are working in a place where they would be pressured to continue doing work after hours are not paid hourly Whether or not they are paid hourly, as long as they are not classified as exempt, they are entitled to overtime pay. (Tech workers are classified as exempt in California, which is indeed a problem and IMHO a mistake, but that's a much smaller issue) > And then there is those long term contractors that are hourly but basically on a fixed number of hours per week... Well, that's a bad way to write a contract, but even so, that's a totally different situation because they're not even an employee. And the French law referenced in the original article wouldn't apply in that situation either.

yason 10y ago

I've generally considered out-of-hours checks to emanate from employees. There will always be employees who want to do a bit of extra, stay a bit longer, answer emails at 10pm, to help make progress in their career and get promotions. Now, you obviously can't prevent these people from doing that without disabling corporate accounts and door access between 5pm-9am. So there will be people doing that, to appear in better light than others. The practice just spreads to less ambitious employees as well, and then to less motivated ones. While I support that you should be able to cut off work after the day is done and switch to your free time I don't see how you could regulate something like that. To even try you would have to ban giving promotions to people who work some extra for their employer (remove the incentive to do extra) or give some sort of employment protection to people who do disconnect (pretty much like you can't fire an employee who's pregnant or on parental leave because such is collectively agreed to be worth some serious shitstorm). In the end, the only enforcement I can think of is that each person needs to make that decision themselves. If they value their free time and life outside work then they must equally deprioritise work in their life, to the extent where they might be fired because they will disconnect from work outside of the hours agreed, and then find an employer who shares the same values. If good employees do that, employers will have to realise that in order to retain or get good employees they must give in and let the employees enjoy their free time in peace. Now, the only problem is that there is always someone more hungry for money than you, willing to sacrifice more than you. The remaining question is that which people are the majority.

kuschku 10y ago
Considering you have to pay people usually 1.5x or 2x their normal wage out of normal work hours in most of Europe, most employers just literally do that – and shove their employees out the door.
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  > Considering you have to pay people usually 1.5x or 2x their normal wage out of normal work hours in most of Europe The same is true in the US. The only difference is that California considers tech workers to be exempt. But other industries and in other states, this still applies.

muninn_ 10y ago

You don't have to do it in the United States, it's just that your coworkers will. In reality it has never made a difference for me. I can quickly scan my email inbox and if anything is urgent and important it's known that you should either call or speak to me in person.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

ptaipale 10y ago

I'm not exactly sure this is "winning a right". It's something that makes it more difficult to serve customers.

ghostDancer 10y ago
Out of hours? So you should check email at 03.00 just in case some insomniac customer needs something that you can't probably fix/send/prepare till next day. That's called slavery even if it's volunteer.
- minipci1321 10y ago
  > 'insomniac customer' ... Many companies these days have branches in all parts of the world. 1) Out of hours for oneself could be perfectly office hours for the customer. 2) you might be the only person knowing this part of the product or tech, and all is required could be just a quick yes/no answer. I am not advocating for either side, but please -- the world is more complex than it seems.
  - ghostDancer 10y ago
    Then my boss should contract some people that can service that customer during their work hours and the rest I'll answer the customer in my work hours, that's what i'm paid for, if my boss wants me 24 hour service he/she should pay me for it, otherwise it's voluntary slavery. They pay me to do my work during my hours not to be at his/her wishes.
    - minipci1321 10y ago
      > Then my boss should contract some people that can service that customer during their work hours... See my pt 2. > if my boss wants me 24 hour service he/she should pay me for it... I think your boss wants result from you, not any random metrics like 24 h/on the job. If you consider that you are underpaid for the result you have been delivering -- have you demanded a raise?

benmarks 10y ago

Will be interested to see studies of cultural effects as time goes on.

iagooar 10y ago

To all fellow software engineers out there: STOP reading company emails after work ALREADY! I don't care what your boss has told you or what your co-workers do. Just don't do it. Warning: this only applies to regular office workers, not management or freelancers. Are you getting paid for checking company emails after working hours? You are not, right? How is offering your limited, private time FOR FREE to a company worth it? Is your private life SO boring, you need to do something that many of us do not even like doing during office hours? Are you afraid to be the only one in your team to bring some sanity? Do you think your boss is going to respect you less if you put clear boundaries between work and private life? Do you think you might lose your job if you don't check emails at all hours? Might be time to start looking for a new job... I know, this post is a bit on the rough side, but I'm just trying to challenge the status quo for some people. I have personally met a lot of good, nice people who would think that they MUST do stuff for the company for free, after hours. Without any good reason. Actually, I had this one colleague who would check emails even very late at night, and if there was someone reporting a bug would jump in and try to fix it. And guess what? Countless times his code was really bad and it caused many more issues than it intended to solve in the first place.

mhurron 10y ago
> not management If management isn't also not reading mail/doing work after office hours than the whole thing falls apart.
- iagooar 10y ago
  Yes, but I don't care what managers do, they have other incentives and their time is (and should be) tracked differently.
  - mhurron 10y ago
    Managers manage people. If they are working, they require other people working to do their job. Basically if they business isn't onboard with the idea of not working after hours, it won't happen and those that try to force it risk being replaced with people that 'fit the company culture.'

draw_down 10y ago

Same shit, different toilet.

dang 10y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13291386 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13291386 and marked it off-topic.

grantlmiller 10y ago

Making it harder to fire employees for another reason might protect the existing jobs, but it lacks the foresight to understand that these practices simply disincentivize employers from making future hires in the country. As a result, this is another move by the French gov to protect the status quo. The French labor market has already been regulated to the point of anti-competitiveness. This immediately hurts younger workers who are willing to work harder than their entrenched counterparts, but instead find themselves unemployed at a rate nearing 25%. More business as usual for paternalistic government lawmakers.

yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
But in this case the alternative is to punish workers for having work/life balance. The "younger workers who are willing to work harder than their entrenched counterparts" are an actively harmful influence, and all this does is level the playing field.
- smallnamespace 10y ago
  > The "younger workers who are willing to work harder than their entrenched counterparts" are an actively harmful influence Even if that's true, the solution should not be to actively penalize young workers, which this might do.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 10y ago
    Given that the rule is uniform, I'm curious how younger workers are penalized? I'd expect everyone to benefit here.
yuhong 10y ago
I once suggested a compromise of limiting US-style anti-discrimination laws to manual labor and similar jobs.
ArkyBeagle 10y ago
Since when is being on call 24/7 "competitive"? I associate it with people who provide public-service type services - doctors, first responders, electric utility workers, even cable TV/modem techs.

jaypaulynice 10y ago

Agree with this. Best thing I ever did was remove all work related apps from my phone. That way I only checked email if I'm on the laptop. More advantages include: saving on your phone bills, storage on your phone, employers spying on you, and of course your sanity. Doing this, I found that most "urgent" emails were not really urgent. Also if there is ever a lawsuit for whatever, the company has a right to seize your phone if there is company content on it.

popotamonga 10y ago
Same here, if it's really that urgent someone will eventually call.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  I like how old tech limitations acted as a natural weighting. Now with everything possible all the time we somehow loss an important source of information.
  - ashark 10y ago
    I was just thinking about that the other day, as it relates to kids and TV. You definitely can still limit children's TV watching, but they're not dumb, and it takes more effort now that they know you could play an episode of their favorite show on Netflix any time you please than when your hands were tied by the broadcast schedule. "Sorry, you'll have to wait for next Saturday" was an easier sell when it was impossible for you to do anything about it (well, tape, but if you hadn't already recorded it there was nothing that could be done after the fact).
    - agumonkey 10y ago
      I meant more about value attached to signals. Before if someone came to see you it meant they made some effort compares to a SMS. Now that everything is the same, lines are blurred and we feel overwhelmed.
10y ago

rahrahrah 10y ago

France catching up to the US HAHAHAHAHAHA You realise that "workers rights" is not given by a single data point, yeah? Even if in this specific case the US has it right, saying that "France is catching up to the US" is ludicrous.

dang 10y ago
> France catching up to the US HAHAHAHAHAHA Please don't do this here. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13291684 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13291684 and marked it off-topic.
- mSparks 10y ago
  please take your life somewhere else.
- rahrahrah 10y ago
  You're doing a shitty job then, because it's very much on-topic.

deavmi 10y ago

Great to hear!

aminok 10y ago

Ridiculous. You have a moral right to refuse to enter into an employment contract that obligates you to respond to emails out-of-hours. You do not have a moral right to prohibit business owners from offering employment terms that include an obligation to respond to emails out of regular work hours. Once again, demagoguery wins over human rights. And people wonder why Europe's economic growth rate has steadily stagnated over the last forty years. The answer is social (demagogic) democracy.

mnm1 10y ago
I think what's more ridiculous is unpaid overtime and letting employers, who naturally have the upper hand in any employment negotiation, set the rules for all employees in the exploitive manner the US does.
- aminok 10y ago
  People have every right to refuse to enter into an employment contract that imposes such obligations. What they don't have a right to do is deny employers the right to offer any terms they want. You're promoting authoritarian infringements on the right of consenting adults to engage in voluntary interactions.
  - franzen 10y ago
    Yes indeed, and it's also a disgrace that children lack the freedom to work! Many children want to work in factories, why let the state interfere? Absolute bollocks.
    - aminok 10y ago
      Children are not "consenting adults", but in any case, child labour was essential for survival in the 19th century, because productivity was much lower than it is today. If you were to invade Myanmar today, and impose a social democratic government that bans child labour, the result would be an increase in mortality. Child labour only became unnecessary as a result of economic development increasing the average level of wealth in society. Going back to the article, it's telling that you're trying to justify the authoritarian prohibition by comparing adults to children. Your ideology sees ordinary people as effectively children, and the state as their parent.

ankitap 10y ago

There is a discussion about this going on my company whatsapp group and all are talking about how good it is to respond to emails at any time of day or night. The company has a culture of pushing people to work more and more? Think you have too much in your hands? Guess what, everyone else does as well so it's no big deal. Sometimes I feel I am in the wrong type of company