- A lawmaker wants to pass a bill allowing employees to ignore calls from their boss after hours.
- The California bill aims to address workplace policies that have become confusing after the pandemic.
- Assembly Bill 2751 would allow exceptions for emergencies or schedule changes.
It’s a universal conundrum: your phone rings after hours and it’s your boss.
You’re not sure what he wants, but it’s probably not to wish you a good night or a good weekend. More likely than not, an after-hours call means more work for you.
Working conditions have changed since the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced legions of workers to work remotely or hybrid schedules. Some of these flextime and location policies remain in effect, making it more difficult for workers to actually end their workday.
In California, a Democratic lawmaker wants to solve this problem by codifying workers’ rights to ignore their boss’s communications after work hours.
“People now find themselves always on and never off,” Assembly Member Matt Haney told the New York Times. “The problem we face now is the gray area, where an employee is expected to respond at any time when, on paper, they work 9 to 5.”
Introduced in February, Assembly Bill 2751 would apply to public and private employers, requiring them to grant workers “the right to disconnect from communications” from an employer after hours. It provides some exceptions for emergencies or schedule changes.
“That doesn’t mean people can’t work long hours or have an agreement for a contract where they’re on call, but it needs to be clear,” Haney, who represents the San Francisco area, told the Times .
The bill is now in the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee, where it has been read twice and amended.
It will likely have to go to a budget committee before it can be read one last time in the State Assembly for a vote. If it gets a majority vote, it will head to the state Senate for a similar process.
businessinsider
