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Do you leave work behind when you physically move out of your workplace? Or do the texts, messages, emails keep pulling you back, monopolizing your life beyond work hours? Do you believe that this can get to a point where an individual eventually breaks down?
These questions were answered with a new French labour reform law enforced from January 1 2017. It requires French companies with more than 50 workers to guarantee their employees a "right to disconnect" from technology after office hours. Companies need to start discussions with employees to define their rights to ignore work related messages. If a deal cannot be reached, the company must publish a charter that would state the demands on, and rights of, employees out-of-hours.
[...] Other countries too have attempted to address the issue of out-of-office work stress. In Japan, Tokyo's governor has ordered strict monitoring of those working beyond 8pm. A German law forbids managers from contacting employees on vacation. South Korea, known for its gruelling work hours, launched a work-life balance campaign last year to encourage annual leaves.
But despite these examples, most remain skeptical of such a law being passed in other countries, especially the U.S., where long workweeks and foregone vacation time are the norm. In 2015, the French worked an average of 1,482 hours a year, while Americans worked about 1,790 hours. U.S. workers not just get less vacation time than their European counterparts but also end up using only 73% of it.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 5, Insightful) by BsAtHome on Wednesday May 24 2017, @06:54AM (11 children)
But this is the problem. Employers abuse the workers because most employees have a sense of responsibility. That is the problem here. In a perfect world, where nobody wants to take advantage of you, this would be good. However, the world is not perfect. Driving business means making profit. And profit, for many "big bosses", is the keyword, regardless any other considerations. If you go under, then there are others to replace you...
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:11AM (5 children)
How about we use judgment then? My problem with using government to protect ourselves from slightly abusive employers, is who will in turn protect us from the government? If people aren't willing to protect themselves from the above common employer problems, then how willing will they be to protect themselves from a police state?
We're creating countries chock full of lambs. You can't run a democracy on that.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:30AM
Why do you need government if you don't benefit from it then?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by UncleSlacky on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:33AM (3 children)
Some form of union would seem to be in order, then - unless you're against those as well, of course...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:30PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @10:00PM (1 child)
Methinks you need to ponder more about the origin of the word "union".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @11:49PM
No, I don't need to. The existence of a labor union doesn't preclude other labor unions with different interests and representing different groups.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @07:27AM (3 children)
This has not been my experience. In the skilled trades and tech I've found it to be true but working unskilled jobs it most assuredly was not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:40AM (2 children)
I think that fact has more to do with perceived worth by the employee. When you feel lime an unappreciated cog it can be easy to stop caring. If you feel valued, and decent pay is a necessary component of this, then often you get better employee attitudes. It is in part a cultural problem as well with claddism being a major problem. Humans evolve, physically and culturally. I feel the west is more evolved than the old (yet still around) caste system of India, but there is lots of room for improvement. The "boss" title means that person is a facilitator, not some superior being. The coders code, bosses handle project management, the foremen keep things on track and safe, etc. No need for bossman the supreme leader. In fact, bossman is often a point of morale failure when employees realize its just a dude in a suit who often provides less value than they do.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 24 2017, @08:52AM (1 child)
That's a partial answer. The complete answer also includes that those who actually care about the quality of their work and the success of their company tend to be promoted more often than those who don't.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @10:06PM
That has not been my experience. Most often, those who actually care about the quality of their work are easily surpassed by those who dabble shiny trinkets instead -- both on the operational level and in management.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 24 2017, @02:13PM
Feudalism sucks, doesn't it? I donno how this brainwashing works, but the serfs have this weird sense of loyalty to their abuser. Like a battered wife sticking to her husband. Actually its like sports nerds going insane about some team they don't own and have no financial or managerial control over yet they ally themselves anyway as if their slavish devotion actually matters.
Contract work is a little different. Extreme pride in my product, I know I make the best stuff possible under the known constraints. But, a fair days wage for a a fair days work. Do I care if the boss sent an email at 10pm about the new dress code for the employees (not me)? Not just no, "F no". Whereas the feudal serfs compete to see who can kiss up the most in a response email at 11pm. I'm just not involved in their sick game.
The extreme of contract work is the building trades. The licensed electrician who did the 3-phase wiring at the mini-datacenter I used to work at, really didn't care if the IT manager was an asshole or not. Frankly I didn't either. Sign my work order, you can expect a FAX/email invoice tomorrow morning, see ya.
Abusive bullies are a different problem, I've noticed over the decades that they need to pound on someone but it certainly doesn't have to be you. If you don't play along with their twisted game they'll get pissed off for a little while or maybe get rid of you, but one way or another if you stop playing the game then you're out of the game, which was what you want. Another interesting less active way to deal with bullies is passive aggressive. Its 10pm on Tuesday and he's screaming, I can let him scream all night I don't give a F, pass me another beer and some popcorn, this is fun to watch. I've noticed screamers who think they're hot stuff in the business world would be the wimpiest beta drill sergeants you can imagine, "business world intimidating" level means nothing to me, it makes me laugh. If you sound like a wimpy beta nu-male parody of "Full Metal Jacket" then at least some of your employees are laughing and probably triggering you for fun, I know I used to trigger people like that for fun. Go active, go passive, whatever you do, don't mindlessly react like they expect.
Manage your boss. Or else.