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posted by on Wednesday May 24 2017, @05:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the 10-weeks-vacation dept.

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


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:30PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 24 2017, @12:30PM (#514766) Journal
    Or people acting on their own initiative. A single labor union would just be another government, but multiple competing labor unions is fine in my book.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @10:00PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 24 2017, @10:00PM (#515143)

    multiple competing labor unions

    Methinks you need to ponder more about the origin of the word "union".

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 24 2017, @11:49PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 24 2017, @11:49PM (#515201) Journal

      Methinks you need to ponder more about the origin of the word "union".

      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.