Weekend Discussion: Should After-Hours Emails Be Illegal?

The irony of me writing and publishing this on a Sunday.

On April Fools’ Day, California Assemblymember Matt Haney announced he’s introduced AB 2751, a proposal that “guarantees California workers uninterrupted personal and family time by creating a ‘right-to-disconnect’ from emails, texts, and calls after work hours.”

His office’s statement explains:

The bill mandates that all California employers create and publish company-wide action plans to implement the new right-to-disconnect laws as well as requiring that all employment contracts in the state clearly outline working and non-working hours. AB 2751 also empowers the California Labor Commissioner’s office to investigate and fine employers that exhibit a pattern of right-to-disconnect violations.

“Work has changed drastically compared to what it was just 10 years ago. Smartphones have blurred the boundaries between work and home life,” said Haney. “Workers shouldn’t be punished for not being available 24/7 if they’re not being paid for 24 hours of work. People have to be able to spend time with their families without being constantly interrupted at the dinner table or their kids’ birthday party, worried about their phones and responding to work.”

The bill’s language specifically says:

Existing law, including statutory provisions and orders of the Industrial Welfare Commission, as enforced by the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, regulates the wages, hours, and working conditions of employees. Existing law makes it a crime for an employer to require or cause any employee to work for longer hours than those fixed or under conditions of labor prohibited by an order of the commission or to violate or refuse or neglect to comply with specified statutes on wages, hours, and working conditions or any order or ruling of the commission.

This bill would require a public or private employer to establish a workplace policy that provides employees the right to disconnect from communications from the employer during nonworking hours, except as specified. The bill would define the “right to disconnect” to mean that, except for an emergency or for scheduling, as defined, an employee has the right to ignore communications from the employer during nonworking hours. The bill would require nonworking hours to be established by written agreement between an employer and employee. The bill would authorize an employee to file a complaint of a pattern of violation of the bill’s provisions with the Labor Commissioner, punishable by a specified civil penalty.

If this bill gets anywhere, it would make California the first state in which employees are legally entitled to a “right to disconnect” after hours.

Yay or nay?

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