Portugal announced last week that employers would face fines if they contact remote workers after business hours. Now, some are wondering if the same thing expand globally, including in the U.S.
Portugal last week gave its workers the “right to rest” in new legislation aiming to improve the work-life balance of the country’s remote workforce, which exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Employers with more than 10 employees could be slapped with fines for emailing staff outside established shift hours, according to the legislation, and will pay for household utilities used by remote employees during work hours. Remote workers with children younger than 8 years old will also be given the option to work from home indefinitely.
In passing these new labor laws, Portugal joins the ranks of other countries ramping up worker protections, and citizens of France, Spain, Belgium, Slovakia, Italy and more all enjoy the “right to disconnect” and can abstain from working during designated rest periods without punishment.
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The provincial government of Ontario last month introduced legislation to promote a healthy work-life balance by requiring employers with more than 24 employees to develop “disconnecting from work policies,” including encouraging workers to switch on “out-of-office” notifications when they are not working.
But experts say laws of this nature are unlikely to be passed in the U.S., where workers spend less than 15 hours a day on personal care and leisure, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation. Some 11 percent of workers in the U.S. work “very long hours,” according to the OECD.
“I don’t think that we’ll see a firm requirement of employers to not at all contact employees during non-work hours,” Orly Lobel, professor of law at the University of San Diego, told The Guardian. While California does have laws prohibiting employers from forcing employees to work overtime, she doesn’t see laws banning after-hours contact as a priority for legislators.
Historically, U.S. employers have put productivity and profits before worker protections, and the country’s capitalist system doesn’t put a premium on equity.
An estimated 4.7 million Americans are working remotely in 2021, but a similar amount are leaving their jobs in the midst of a “great resignation,” with 4.4 million “quits” in September, the highest ever, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some say that’s likely due to burnout, and workers are seeking jobs with more flexible hours and a better work-life balance.
It’s unlikely that individual U.S. corporations will institute more accommodating policies, and even though its “legally possible” for the U.S. to pass a law similar to Portugal and others, lawmakers and courts have historically been “reticent to interfere with business decisions,” Veena Dubal, a professor of law at the University of California, Hastings College, told The Guardian.
A better working environment will have to come from a “cultural shift” that could emerge through the greater labor movement, she said.
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