Portugal Makes It Illegal For Your Boss To Text You After Work (vice.com) 41
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: The Portuguese parliament has passed new labour laws to give workers a healthier work-life balance and to attract "digital nomads" to the country. Employers could face penalties for contacting employees outside work hours, according to the new laws. The legislation, approved on Friday, comes following the expansion of home working after the coronavirus pandemic, according to Portugal's Socialist Party government. Under new rules, employers could be penalized for contacting employees after work and will be forced to pay for increased expenses as a result of working from home -- such as gas and electricity bills. Further rules will be implemented to aid employees at home, such as banning employers from monitoring their workers at home and ensuring workers must meet with their boss every two months to stop isolation. Not all legislation designed to help home workers passed through parliament, however. The so-called "Right to Disconnect" -- a law giving workers the ability to switch off work devices -- was not voted through.
quality worklife balance (Score:5, Funny)
Re:quality worklife balance (Score:5, Funny)
They should go the logical step further and make it illegal for your wife to text you during work hours.
My wife is my boss. She has an app business, and I work for her.
Now, I just need to convince her to move to Portugal.
Re: (Score:3)
Doesn't it just need to be you who moves there? She can run a foreign corporation and abide by Portugal's laws. :-)
So basically, you can't have a non-professional... (Score:3, Interesting)
Am I right?
Re: (Score:1)
Am I right?
Uh... maybe? I don't think you can reasonably draw that conclusion from a brief journalistic English language summary without seeing what the legislation actually says but of course you could be right.
Re: (Score:2)
Well that's the only say I can see this sort of law being feasible.
I know married couples wherre one of them is actually the boss where the other works. They conduct themselves professionally at work, and nobody has though anything of it.
But hell, if someone wasn't allowed to text their spouse after work because their spouse was also their boss.... that'd be kind of a problem, don't you think?
Re: So basically, you can't have a non-professiona (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do people always overthink avenues for remedy in situations where somebody wouldn't be seeking remedy?
You're not obligated to report your employer. If your employer if your spouse, your spouse only needs to worry about texting you *about work* after hours if he or she has any actual concern that you would file a complaint or seek legal action.
If an employer and an employee have an informal arrangement that relaxes the boundries this kind of legislation establishes, I doubt the state is going around preventing two people from voluntarily talking to each other.
All this seems to do is to give an employee a legal foundation for preferring not to be contacted outside of work hours.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Obviously we don't have the full wording of the bill, but Vice'ss summary, woudn't take too skilled of a writer to define it as you cannot contact someone about work when they are off the clock.
Course I'm a bit confused of why that is needed in non american countries. In the US this kind of law would be needed, Simply on the bases that even if the law made it simply that you cannot get fired for not answering those calls, in pretty much anywhere in the us you can get fired for "no reason", which means
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:So, what about... (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
The problem with anglosphere news is that they generally report in this sensational fashion on a lot of European legislation on issues similar to those being culturally relevant in US and/or UK. For example, the "but they decriminalized all drugs in Portugal", which often reports on how people can do heroin in the streets and not get arrested.
When in reality, you still get arrested for hard drug offenses. Then depending on variant of that specific nation (Portugal and Netherlands have some variations, but the core concept is the same) there's a committee which meets with the drug user and builds a personal plan on how to get that user off the drugs. If user disagrees, he goes in front of court, and gets prosecuted for using drugs and goes to prison. If he agrees, but fails to meet the criteria for checks set by the committee, he goes in front of the judge and to prison for drug offense. If he's caught with more than what is considered personal usage... you get the idea.
Because they haven't decriminalized hard drugs. They merely allow an alternative path for drug users to choose, where they are put under significant monitoring and a special authority that makes a personal plan for them to get off drugs that is harshly monitored. And if they don't follow those orders or fail to meet criteria and get caught by the monitors, they get prosecuted for hard drug offenses and are criminally punished according to the relevant laws.
This is almost certainly the same thing here, where they allow for pretty much all communications, but they allow employee an enforceable option if they do want to disconnect to an extent during off-work hours. Which is likely going to need to be negotiated with the boss. This isn't US with it's borderline autistic "my way and I'm not listening to any details of the case, two 15 year olds having sex together both get prosecuted for raping one another!" judiciary, and one shouldn't assume outcomes on the basis of "but if this law was in US..." It isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you have the Portuguese model backwards.
The documentary I saw said that in Portugal, the addict is not coerced into accepting treatment. If he committed a crime, he has to complete his full sentence. Then, if he wants treatment, he's given treatment, but he's not given a reduced sentence because he accepted treatment.
This is to avoid people who don't want to be treated from going into treatment. Because those coerced individuals won't just ruin treatment for themselves, they will ruin it for everyon
Re: (Score:1)
I've seen two English language documentaries on Portugese model so far. Both were choke full of angosphere specific assumptions and wide scale misrepresentation about the system where documentary makers were pushing their domestic agenda.
That is in fact my complaint. Anglosphere people tend to be among the most egocentric, and most ignorant of realities outside their linguistic bubble on the planet. Even Chinese are often better at this, and they live under a strict state interests driven propaganda regime
Re: So, what about... (Score:4, Insightful)
Youre the person who asks the most inane, stupid questions during the Q&A portions of company meetings. Stop wasting our time with your dumb hypotheticals, they don't make you look smart, they make you look stupid.
Good for some people (Score:5, Interesting)
These sorts of laws are good for some people, but I don't like that it removes flexibility for others.
I, personally, have a very flexible work arrangement, which works out best for me and for my employer. I'd hate to have legislation like this passed (in my country) that would prevent my employer and I from having our current arrangement. It seems like a bit of an overstep on the part of the government.
(Of course I don't know the specific details of the Portuguese version of this; I'm speaking generally, since this kind of thing seems to be a popular idea for many.)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know the details of this law, but it should be noted that European legislature (in the countries I am somewhat familiar with, at least, mostly northern Europe) seems to weigh the intent of the law heavier than what I get the impression US law does. The intent of this law is likely to try to address situations where an employer pays you to work 8-16 but bombards you with email and phone calls outside of those hours, expecting you to respond without putting down overtime. It's probably not trying to e
Re: (Score:2)
Widespread abuse results in a rule that sadly makes like for a select few worse. Unfortunate, but after having managers abuse my vacation schedule and weekends a few too many times I would rather have this in place and piss off a few folks like you than to allow every increasing and widespread work-creep to continue.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That would simply not work for me (Score:2)
One of the key reasons my boss can and does text (or message) me after work hours is that he also doesn't care that I sometimes show up around noon. It's an agreement between us that works for both of us beneficially. I don't mind him asking me for a quick job around midnight, he doesn't berate me for showing up around lunchtime (and even that only if the cafeteria has something good today), and we're both happy with that arrangement.
I can of course see that there are some workers who are being abused by th
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like your normal work hours are later than most, not that you are getting pinged outside of them. How would you feel if your boss decided he wanted to start pinging you at 7 AM, and kept doing so till 9 PM (or whatever your usual end time is)? I've found that getting unapologetically pinged by a VP on a weekend was instantly infuriating, left that place ASAP after that (among many other contributing factors). Many of us want lives outside of work, and don't want to constantly have to pull away fro
Re: (Score:2)
He can of course text me at 7am. It's unlikely that he'll get a reply at this time, though, because usually I would be sleeping.
It's legal to ask, not to fire you if you say no (Score:2)
One of the key reasons my boss can and does text (or message) me after work hours is that he also doesn't care that I sometimes show up around noon. It's an agreement between us that works for both of us beneficially. I don't mind him asking me for a quick job around midnight, he doesn't berate me for showing up around lunchtime (and even that only if the cafeteria has something good today), and we're both happy with that arrangement.
I can of course see that there are some workers who are being abused by their superiors to work insane hours, but what if a working agreement is for the mutual benefit of both parties that goes against what you consider a "normal" work relationship?
Obviously, this isn't even a problem unless you live in Portugal. For the US, all labor laws have some exemptions. Minimum wage is the law and Tim Cook isn't paid minimum wage. He's paid in equity. I am sure most countries would allow for exemptions if mutually agreed upon.
Also, this would only make it illegal for them to force you to do so. You want to text your boss at midnight, that's OK. He can ask for your help at 2AM. He can't fire you because you don't respond after hours. Also, you and
fishing off the company pier (Score:3)
What if I'm banging the receptionist? Guess I'll just have to switch to Signal.
Get real (Score:2, Insightful)
What about automated system notifications?
A water pipe broke in the server room, it's all hands on deck
We need you at customer x tomorrow instead of at the office
Sometimes it's part of the job.
Then PAY for it (Score:4)
What about automated system notifications?
A water pipe broke in the server room, it's all hands on deck
We need you at customer x tomorrow instead of at the office
Sometimes it's part of the job.
Sure, then PAY for those hours.
The summary is quite clear already, "penalties for contacting employees outside work hours", you want your employees answer calls in the middle of the night, sure, pay them 24 hours a day.
Oh, you wanted free labor? Then go fxxk yourself.
Re: (Score:3)
The water pipe case is actual work, and must be billed as such. It's an actual emergency rather than the perpetual crunch, though, and I consider it would be wrong to penalize the employer for contacting the employee, assuming it's an one-off thing. If such disasters happen repeatedly, that's no longer an accident. In either case, it's work that needs to be compensated.
As for telling the employee they need to come to a different site, that's ok to me if such notifications don't take a significant time, n
Re: (Score:2)
What about automated system notifications? A water pipe broke in the server room, it's all hands on deck We need you at customer x tomorrow instead of at the office
Sometimes it's part of the job.
Sure, then PAY for those hours.
The summary is quite clear already, "penalties for contacting employees outside work hours", you want your employees answer calls in the middle of the night, sure, pay them 24 hours a day.
Answering calls is a bit different than a text, IMHO. A text can be a simple - office closed tomorrow, work from home, or check with so and so tomorrow because X arrive at the dock today. I think most people would recognize the difference between an occasional "by the way" text and unreasonable amounts that require doing work. Depending on the laws for minimum wage and overtime an employer could define salaried employee's hours at 24x7. I doubt that would fly under Portuguese and EU law, but in some c
Re: (Score:2)
The working time directive limits the number of hours you can work in a week. So even if you earn enough that if your hours are defined as 24x7 you still make minimum wage, that is not legally permissible.
Frankly though you can set any modern smartphone to ignore a number between given hours. I guess the unwashed masses are too dumb to activate that feature?
Personally I had to go in and fiddle with the settings to allow the data centre manager to ring in the middle of the night or weekend. If the air condit
Increased expenses? (Score:2)
Most people's expenses go down when working from home as the cost of travelling to/from a workplace generally exceeds the cost of extra electricity consumed at home.
Not to mention other costs that could be reduced if you don't have to travel to a specific workplace - for instance not just saving daily fuel costs but also doing without a car entirely or moving to a cheaper location that would be impractical to travel from daily.
Re: (Score:1)
true that you save money from travel, but you may also have a increase costs in electric bill and gas (computer turn on, but also heating/AC and preparing food), water (bathroom and drinks), internet (maybe a upgrade or more time connected, for those that still pay by minute online) and food (may be cheaper at home, but can also be more expensive, depending how you get your food).
Add to this a one time extra bill to get office equipment for those that miss those equipments
Specially for heating/cooling, it
Re: (Score:2)
For most of the people i work with, heating/cooling and electrical costs are eclipsed by travel costs.
For some people the heating/cooling costs remain the same - eg if they have other family members at home anyway, or live in a location where heating/ac often isn't required.
Plus the cost of having the heating on all day vs turning it off when you leave and back on when you return from work is quite small. Once you turn the heating off in the morning, the house gets colder throughout the course of the day an
Re: (Score:2)
>For most of the people i work with, heating/cooling and electrical costs are eclipsed by travel costs.
That may depend where you are in the world and how far from the work to home... in Europe, you usually don't live way too far and have good public transport, that isn't expensive too. Of course each country is different, but this is probably the opposite from the USA, where people live far from work place and have to travel by their own car as there are little public transport
> For some people the he
How about just make them pay for it? (Score:2)
Instead of banning the practice outright, just make companies pay additional amounts of money when they ask employees to work off hours. Hourly workers already get this, professionals don't. This leads to companies making their professionals work during off hours, just because they have no financial incentive not to. Try extending the time-and-a-half rule to all workers, this problem will largely go away.