New French Law Prohibits After-Hours Work Emails

Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "Lucy Mangan reports at The Guardian that a new labor agreement in France means that employees must ignore their bosses' work emails once they are out of the office and relaxing at home – even on their smartphones. Under the deal, which affects a million employees in the technology and consultancy sectors (including the French arms of Google, Facebook, and Deloitte), employees will also have to resist the temptation to look at work-related material on their computers or smartphones – or any other kind of malevolent intrusion into the time they have been nationally mandated to spend on whatever the French call la dolce vita. "We must also measure digital working time," says Michel De La Force, chairman of the General Confederation of Managers. "We can admit extra work in exceptional circumstances but we must always come back to what is normal, which is to unplug, to stop being permanently at work." However critics say it will impose further red tape on French businesses, which already face some of the world's tightest labor laws." (Continues)

"However according to Simon Kelner French productivity levels outstrip those of Britain and Germany, and French satisfaction with their quality of life is above the OECD average. "No wonder, we may say. We'd all like to take a couple of hours off for lunch, washed down with a nice glass of Côtes du Rhône, and then switch our phones off as soon as we leave work. It's just that our bosses won't let us.""

Short term - long term

[cyberchondriac]

That's good for workers in the short term, it really is ridiculous how much work intrudes into our personal lives anymore, to where a company can practically own you; I can somewhat relate, having recently been made to go "on call" at work but where we're not really "on call" but expected to actively monitor 40 sites for a week, with a 4 week rotation among employees (and compensation for this new duty.. what's that? Only happens if we actually engage an issue, we're not paid for just the monitoring) I love how an employer can just change the terms of your employment, but it's not like I can walk in and declare I'm now going to make $8,000 more a year. BTW, we have a union, they don't do squat.. they just hit you for dues.
OTOH, this will ultimately put French businesses at a serious disadvantage in competing with other countrys' businesses, as their response time to an issue may be greatly reduced.
Rather than outright ban it, maybe just some solid restrictions on say, 11pm to 6am as off limits.. or alternating weeks or something ...and provide overtime pay, definitely.

Re:get rid of salary pay / make it have a high lev

[royallthefourth]

In the 1980's, IBM (among others) invested lots of money to have legislation passed that makes programmers, engineers, and sysadmins into "salaried professionals" so that they wouldn't have to pay overtime.

The only way that could possibly be reversed is a group larger and more powerful than the owners of tech companies fighting to reverse it; that is to say, the organized tech workers will have fight for our own standard of living. We won't be able to do that until we are actually organized, though. Perhaps the sporadically striking fast food workers who were previously thought to be powerless can set an example for us.

Re:At least someone appreciates work-life balance

[Shakrai]

If I'm off the clock, I should be able to completely ignore work and everything work-related.

In a fair world you would be able to. Of course, in a fair world people also wouldn't check Facebook during business hours, or read personal e-mails, answer texts/calls their personal cell phones, shop on Amazon, or gossip with their coworkers at the coffee pot/water cooler outside of designated break times.

The work-life balance tilts both ways. YMMV, but I come out significantly ahead when I compare the personal things I do on company time against the occasional phone call or e-mail I handle during the evening or on the weekend.

I wouldn't like this

[swillden]

Many people seem to enjoy strict segregation of work and personal life. I don't. I like flexibility; I like being able to leave work for a few hours in the middle of the day to go to a kids' school play, or go for a bike ride, or go skiing (next winter I'll be working from home full-time, 20 minutes from a ski resort; I'm seriously planning to be skiing from 9-11 AM almost daily) or whatever. I like being able to, with a totally clear conscience, spend an hour reading and posting on slashdot or G+ or whatever. I also like being able to work in the evening when inspiration strikes, or to make up for time spent away from work during the day, or for whatever reason. Heck, maybe I just want to and for whatever reason don't have anything better to do just then.

I don't live to work, but I like my work, and I don't like drawing a sharp line separating work and non-work. I think that sort of separation is a recent invention anyway; historically work has been a part of life rather than walled off into a particular portion of each day. Of course, I have no objection to people who prefer to manage their work/life balance by sharply separating them. If that what works for them, more power to them. It's not my preference, though, and it's not the only way to balance the two. It's not something that should be legislated.