6 ms·

Reading the text, they didn’t actually create a right to disconnect from work. They only require employers to write down their policy and share it with employee

Reading the text, they didn’t actually create a right to disconnect from work. They only require employers to write down their policy and share it with employees: > The legislation offers no guidance as to what must be included in the policy, and simply provides that the policy must include "such information as may be prescribed." This was apparently intentional as noted in the legislative summary in an effort to offer employers flexibility to develop a policy appropriate to its operational needs. So unless I’m missing something, a company can write down “Employees must be available as needed” or something equally vague and they comply with the policy. In practice I would expect most employers to write a lot of vague wording about how employees aren’t required to be active online in their off hours, but they’ll leave the door open for emergency communications as needed. No sane company is going to write down a legally binding policy that nobody is going to contact anybody else at certain times. Imagine how easy it would be for a manager to break such a restriction by accidentally tagging an employee name in Slack at the wrong time of day, for example. The “right to disconnect” seems largely symbolic. On the other hand, banning non-competes is a big deal. They are effectively banned in my location (and several other states in the United States) and it’s great to not worry about it at all.

GauntletWizard 5y ago
I'm A-okay with just clarifying the policy. I carried a pager, and got paid well for it. I no longer do, hut absolutely would again for the right compensation.
- eru 5y ago
  Yes, absolutely. People in software get paid well enough and have enough other options that freedom of contract is the best policy. Let people know upfront what they are getting into, and then let them make their own choice about whether it's worthwhile or not. There might be some argument about whether this kind of 'consenting adults' approach to labour regulation is the right or wrong approach for less well off people. (Many people seem to think that the poor are like kids and need to be protected from themselves by someone who knows better what's good for them..) But for people in the ever-booming field of software, that's a hard argument to make.
  - franga2000 5y ago
    > Many people seem to think that the poor are like kids and need to be protected from themselves by someone who knows better what's good for them That's not the reason. If you're poor, you are likely desperately looking for a job. This means that if you are offered one with shit working conditions, but that pays better than your current situation (which might be zero!), you HAVE TO take it. Most people have nearly zero bargaining power in their employment, which is why we need regulation especially for them. And yes, while in a highly-valued field like IT, we usually have enough bargaining power, regulation still helps us. If the baseline was "just don't beat your workers, everything else is legal", we'd have a lot more to negotiate first, before we even got to the things we negotiate these days like benefits, loose schedules, work from home, etc. And it's not like we can't fall on hard times either. Not everyone that is paid well is rich. They might be the main source of income for a large family or a have sick or old relatives to take care of. Or they might be at the start of their career without any savings. Bargaining power comes from the ability to quit, which comes from the ability to find a new job before your savings run out. No matter your industry, finding a job still takes time, so if you don't have enough savings to cover that time, you're in no better of a position than the poor person from the first paragraph.
    - eru 5y ago
      > And yes, while in a highly-valued field like IT, we usually have enough bargaining power, regulation still helps us. If the baseline was "just don't beat your workers, everything else is legal", we'd have a lot more to negotiate first, before we even got to the things we negotiate these days like benefits, loose schedules, work from home, etc. Nah. Compare eg restaurants. Food safety is strictly regulated in many countries, but taste ain't. Still, you can walk into most restaurants and get something reasonably palatable. No need to laboriously negotiate the taste. Similarly, in place and times when there was no minimum wage, people didn't typically negotiate their compensation from a baseline of zero. The baseline is what's prevalent in the market. (My adopted home of Singapore doesn't have a minimum wage today. Germany and Hong Kong only got theirs relatively recently. The pre-20th-century US didn't have one either, yet was the target of many migrants.) > And it's not like we can't fall on hard times either. Not everyone that is paid well is rich. They might be the main source of income for a large family or a have sick or old relatives to take care of. That might be an argument for a social safety net financed by tax payers. But not an argument in favour of adding extra burdens on those who would offer poor people a job. See https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...
dghlsakjg 5y ago
As an American working in Canada: Canada has a much stronger workers rights culture, and tends to have regulatory agencies that can produce results. (At the individual level, regulatory capture at the macro scale is just as prevalent, if not more so in the case of extractive industries). It wouldn’t surprise me if vague clauses don’t get upheld, or if requiring an employee to be connected also comes with the responsibility of compensation and expenses. When I worked for a company that required me to do on-call on holidays or weekends, I was given an extra vacation day in compensation even if I hadn’t actually done anything but triage. Work life in Canada seems generally much more balanced from an anecdotal perspective.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  > When I worked for a company that required me to do on-call on holidays or weekends, I was given an extra vacation day in compensation even if I hadn’t actually done anything but triage. This also occurs in the US and is more due to tech labor market tightness.
  - dghlsakjg 5y ago
    This was true for employees across the organization (outside of the dev/it department), which was in the hospitality industry. It wasn’t done to retain hard to recruit tech employees, it was done because that is the expectation in many office environments in Canada.
    - kortilla 5y ago
      Expectations of employees is the market
      - eru 5y ago
        It's part of the market. But it's not the only driving force. Employees can't magically 'expect' their total comp up or down. But expectations can drive how that comp is commonly split between eg salary and benefits like longer lunch hours.

GauntletWizard 5y ago

I'm A-okay with just clarifying the policy. I carried a pager, and got paid well for it. I no longer do, hut absolutely would again for the right compensation.

eru 5y ago
Yes, absolutely. People in software get paid well enough and have enough other options that freedom of contract is the best policy. Let people know upfront what they are getting into, and then let them make their own choice about whether it's worthwhile or not. There might be some argument about whether this kind of 'consenting adults' approach to labour regulation is the right or wrong approach for less well off people. (Many people seem to think that the poor are like kids and need to be protected from themselves by someone who knows better what's good for them..) But for people in the ever-booming field of software, that's a hard argument to make.
- franga2000 5y ago
  > Many people seem to think that the poor are like kids and need to be protected from themselves by someone who knows better what's good for them That's not the reason. If you're poor, you are likely desperately looking for a job. This means that if you are offered one with shit working conditions, but that pays better than your current situation (which might be zero!), you HAVE TO take it. Most people have nearly zero bargaining power in their employment, which is why we need regulation especially for them. And yes, while in a highly-valued field like IT, we usually have enough bargaining power, regulation still helps us. If the baseline was "just don't beat your workers, everything else is legal", we'd have a lot more to negotiate first, before we even got to the things we negotiate these days like benefits, loose schedules, work from home, etc. And it's not like we can't fall on hard times either. Not everyone that is paid well is rich. They might be the main source of income for a large family or a have sick or old relatives to take care of. Or they might be at the start of their career without any savings. Bargaining power comes from the ability to quit, which comes from the ability to find a new job before your savings run out. No matter your industry, finding a job still takes time, so if you don't have enough savings to cover that time, you're in no better of a position than the poor person from the first paragraph.
  - eru 5y ago
    > And yes, while in a highly-valued field like IT, we usually have enough bargaining power, regulation still helps us. If the baseline was "just don't beat your workers, everything else is legal", we'd have a lot more to negotiate first, before we even got to the things we negotiate these days like benefits, loose schedules, work from home, etc. Nah. Compare eg restaurants. Food safety is strictly regulated in many countries, but taste ain't. Still, you can walk into most restaurants and get something reasonably palatable. No need to laboriously negotiate the taste. Similarly, in place and times when there was no minimum wage, people didn't typically negotiate their compensation from a baseline of zero. The baseline is what's prevalent in the market. (My adopted home of Singapore doesn't have a minimum wage today. Germany and Hong Kong only got theirs relatively recently. The pre-20th-century US didn't have one either, yet was the target of many migrants.) > And it's not like we can't fall on hard times either. Not everyone that is paid well is rich. They might be the main source of income for a large family or a have sick or old relatives to take care of. That might be an argument for a social safety net financed by tax payers. But not an argument in favour of adding extra burdens on those who would offer poor people a job. See https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

dghlsakjg 5y ago

As an American working in Canada: Canada has a much stronger workers rights culture, and tends to have regulatory agencies that can produce results. (At the individual level, regulatory capture at the macro scale is just as prevalent, if not more so in the case of extractive industries). It wouldn’t surprise me if vague clauses don’t get upheld, or if requiring an employee to be connected also comes with the responsibility of compensation and expenses. When I worked for a company that required me to do on-call on holidays or weekends, I was given an extra vacation day in compensation even if I hadn’t actually done anything but triage. Work life in Canada seems generally much more balanced from an anecdotal perspective.

whimsicalism 5y ago
> When I worked for a company that required me to do on-call on holidays or weekends, I was given an extra vacation day in compensation even if I hadn’t actually done anything but triage. This also occurs in the US and is more due to tech labor market tightness.
- dghlsakjg 5y ago
  This was true for employees across the organization (outside of the dev/it department), which was in the hospitality industry. It wasn’t done to retain hard to recruit tech employees, it was done because that is the expectation in many office environments in Canada.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    Expectations of employees is the market
    - eru 5y ago
      It's part of the market. But it's not the only driving force. Employees can't magically 'expect' their total comp up or down. But expectations can drive how that comp is commonly split between eg salary and benefits like longer lunch hours.