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> However, a proposal to include the so-called "right to disconnect" - the legal right to switch off work-related messages and devices outside office hours - wa
by jl6 5y ago
> However, a proposal to include the so-called "right to disconnect" - the legal right to switch off work-related messages and devices outside office hours - was rejected by Portuguese MPs.
I genuinely don’t get this. It seems completely backwards.
Surely your boss should have the right to contact you, but you should have the right not to answer until your working hours recommence?
Is Portugal deciding that the very act of sending a message creates some kind of coercive pressure to work?
If so, why did they decide against the “right to disconnect”?
- dsnr 5y agoThe problem as I see it is that it can put you at an unfair disadvantage to your team-mates who might choose to reply to your boss, or even do that "urgent thing" that your boss wants. Now you're suddenly the employee who chose not to "dedicate" extra 15 mins of your time to that "important" project. There should not be this kind of competition outside of working hours. Free time and family life should be protected.
- jl6 5y agoI don’t buy it. This law doesn’t prevent competition outside working hours. The employee who wants to be seen to go “above and beyond” doesn’t need a time-specific prompting message to decide to work an extra 15 minutes. The boss can easily make it known that those extra 15 minutes would be rewarded, either by dropping an email at 4:59pm, or using management clichés like “going the extra mile” and “taking one for the team”, or worse, manipulative non-verbal techniques that give advantage to in-groups and create barriers to out-groups.