Anyone tired of answering emails and calls from their boss after work may soon be protected by law in California.
A bill has been introduced in California legislature that would give employees the “right to disconnect” from their jobs during nonworking hours.
Assemblymember Matt Haney of San Francisco first introduced the bill, Assembly Bill 2751 in February, which would allow employees to disconnect from communications from their employer during nonworking hours.
If passed, California would be the first state to create a “right to disconnect” for employees. Similar laws have already been enacted in 13 countries, including Australia, Argentina, Belgium, France, Italy, Mexico, Portugal and Spain.
I thought they already had that during working hours. I swear sometimes while I’m working on the east coast hours, my west coast colleagues signs on at 12PM EST and signs off of 530EST and aren’t around to answer my 6:30 EST pings. Meanwhile I’m waking early for EU client calls, and handling 9PM meetings with Asia offices. So it goes. I don’t think we can have it both ways where you can be remote working from anywhere yet not be on the hook to work hours during the defined operational times. I’m not working 9 to 9EST, and take long breaks mid day if I have evening meetings, but there are operational realities of needing to talk to people to get work done and those times need to be defined.