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  1. #1
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    Weekend Work Emails Are Now Illegal In France

    Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b03ede4413515a

    Checking your work email on a weekend or a holiday? In France, where employees have been granted “the right to disconnect,” that’s now against the law.

    Buried inside a recently enacted — and hotly contested — French labor reform bill is an amendment banning companies of 50 or more employees from sending emails after typical work hours. “The right to disconnect” amendment, as it’s so called, is aimed at minimizing the negative impacts of being excessively plugged in.

    “All the studies show there is far more work-related stress today than there used to be, and that the stress is constant,” Benoit Hamon of the French National Assembly told the BBC earlier this month. “Employees physically leave the office, but they do not leave their work. They remain attached by a kind of electronic leash— like a dog. The texts, the messages, the emails — they colonize the life of the individual to the point where he or she eventually breaks down.”

    Work-related burnout appears to be a growing concern for the French government. In February, French Health Minister Marisol Touraine formed a working group in an effort to define and treat work-related exhaustion. According to an April article in the French daily Les Échos, about 1 in 10 of the nation’s workforce is at a high risk of job-related burnout.

    Under the new law, companies are mandated to negotiate formal policies to limit the spillover of work, specifically as it’s related to “digital technology,” into the private lives of employees. This, according to the BBC, will involve companies establishing “charters of good conduct” specifying hours, typically in the evenings and weekends, when employees aren’t supposed to send or receive email.

  2. #2
    That would just stress me out.

  3. #3
    Fluffy Kitten Yvaelle's Avatar
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    Oh it's like that France?

    You going to throw down the Liberal Gauntlet - well two can play at that game - Canada will see your "right to disconnect" and raise you, "the right to sneak out early on Fridays" - our work day will now end at 3pm on Friday, and our Justin Trudeau will personally up the ante by buying Canadians the first round of week-end drinks.

    What now, France!?

    *mic drop*
    Youtube ~ Yvaelle ~ Twitter

  4. #4
    Moderator Crissi's Avatar
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    Heh, and this is why my dad isnt thrilled with his companies HQ.

    US based: "We need to get this super critial project done, which likely requires extra hours and weekends"

    Paris based and frenchies in US: "Nope, we will only work as little as required"

    US based: "Screw you guys" *works until project is done which saves the company*

    This isnt to say every one of them is like that, but thats the general attitude of my Dad's company in France and some of the French bosses that are over here and it drives him nuts

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  6. #6
    Stood in the Fire HeroZero's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    Oh it's like that France?

    You going to throw down the Liberal Gauntlet - well two can play at that game - Canada will see your "right to disconnect" and raise you, "the right to sneak out early on Fridays" - our work day will now end at 3pm on Friday, and our Justin Trudeau will personally up the ante by buying Canadians the first round of week-end drinks.

    What now, France!?

    *mic drop*
    You made my night a little bit better, and for that I thank you.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Crissi View Post
    Heh, and this is why my dad isnt thrilled with his companies HQ.

    US based: "We need to get this super critial project done, which likely requires extra hours and weekends"

    Paris based and frenchies in US: "Nope, we will only work as little as required"

    US based: "Screw you guys" *works until project is done which saves the company*
    I have friends who work in consulting who work 80 hour workweeks, who STILL get the 5am emails on a Sunday. One was getting harassed by his office during his father's funeral. Email culture is excessive.

    Answering emails at home should be viewed as work and therefore billable to clients and/or considered a part of an employee's hourly pay. Obama's update to OT protection laws for salaried employees did not go far enough, in my opinion, salary cap should be well above 80k.

  8. #8
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    It would be nice indeed if big businesses were not able to sap free energy and work from their employees. It's a growing problem, managers and business owners feeling entitled to access you even when you're not at work. Good on France.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Yvaelle View Post
    Oh it's like that France?

    You going to throw down the Liberal Gauntlet - well two can play at that game - Canada will see your "right to disconnect" and raise you, "the right to sneak out early on Fridays" - our work day will now end at 3pm on Friday, and our Justin Trudeau will personally up the ante by buying Canadians the first round of week-end drinks.

    What now, France!?

    *mic drop*
    Won't Trudeau be buying the weed, not the drinks? ������

    Lovely idea, but I'm super against the removal of the choice. If an employee wants to put in the extra work to get ahead. Or answers a time sensitive email, I think that should be their choice. Trying to make it a bad social stigma to put in extra work on the weekends doesn't really appeal to me. Thankfully I live in America where we can work 8 days a week making some asshole rich.

  10. #10
    Moderator Crissi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Celista View Post
    I have friends who work in consulting who work 80 hour workweeks, who STILL get the 5am emails on a Sunday. One was getting harassed by his office during his father's funeral. Email culture is excessive.

    Answering emails at home should be viewed as work and therefore billable to clients and/or considered a part of an employee's hourly pay. Obama's update to OT protection laws for salaried employees did not go far enough, in my opinion, salary cap should be well above 80k.
    I could possibly get behind it for lower tier workers or workers whose work isnt super critical. However, Ive gotten to see how people need to work to get super important projects done from people that are highish in a company. Those emails can be necessary outside of a work space. Then you also need to take into acocunt telecomuters, whose home IS their office...

  11. #11
    I Don't Work Here Endus's Avatar
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    Really, something people need to do is properly evaluate their own pay.

    First, get a handle on your actual hours. Putting in a 60 hour workweek? That's the baseline. Have an hour's commute each day, 5 days a week? That's 65 hours. Are you "on-call" during off hours? Count that as half pay, and add it in.

    Now, take your amended workhours, and divide your weekly salary by that amount. That's your hourly wage. For instance, if this comes out to 80 hours, and you're working a salaried position for $40,000/year, that means you're wworking for less than $10/hour. Feel good about that? That's significantly less than minimum wage, up here. You could probably make more money working that hard at a couple burger joints.

    I'm not saying don't work, but don't let your employer take advantage of you. If you end up working for less than minimum wage, all things considered, your employer is scamming you.


  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Endus View Post
    Really, something people need to do is properly evaluate their own pay.

    First, get a handle on your actual hours. Putting in a 60 hour workweek? That's the baseline. Have an hour's commute each day, 5 days a week? That's 65 hours. Are you "on-call" during off hours? Count that as half pay, and add it in.

    Now, take your amended workhours, and divide your weekly salary by that amount. That's your hourly wage. For instance, if this comes out to 80 hours, and you're working a salaried position for $40,000/year, that means you're wworking for less than $10/hour. Feel good about that? That's significantly less than minimum wage, up here. You could probably make more money working that hard at a couple burger joints.

    I'm not saying don't work, but don't let your employer take advantage of you. If you end up working for less than minimum wage, all things considered, your employer is scamming you.
    Indeed. The friend I mentioned in the above post (the consultant who was getting emails during his father's funeral) calculated his salary based on his hours worked, not adjusting for commuting or email/work at home, and he found out that he was making less per hour working as a consultant for a well-known consulting firm than he did while he was working in restaurant management during undergrad.

    US labor laws suck and our "work hard" culture is just perpetuating the problem. Americans ALREADY work hard. We're just not getting compensated very well for it.

    http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...ematic/385931/
    http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...-harder-charts

  13. #13
    The idea that you can't send work emails after hours is silly. I would fully support making it illegal for companies to punish people (except specific positions) for not checking their emails during off hours, but to prevent them from being sent causes massive headaches. Anyone who has ever managed an office knows that there are days when you work very late. For large offices a mass email regarding a change or even a status update can be quite efficient. Why should it be illegal for someone to send out an email right before they go home, with the full intent of employees reading them in the morning? Also there are times when something comes up and you may need an employee to go to a different location first thing in the morning. Using email (if you can't reach the person by phone for whatever reason) to let them know can actually save that individual gas by not having them drive to an office on one end of town, only to have to immediately drive to the other end of town.

    Yes some employers abuse this "always connected" world we live in, but laws like this cause just as many problems.

  14. #14
    Things like this happen when you have a socialist government like in France.
    There is a reason why they protest on the streets since 2 months.

    Vote Bernie!

  15. #15
    The Undying Kalis's Avatar
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    The Frenchies being workshy? Sacre bleu, c'est sans precedent!

  16. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Vilendor View Post
    Things like this happen when you have a socialist government like in France.
    There is a reason why they protest on the streets since 2 months.

    Vote Bernie!
    nonono. First thing first, its a socialist gouvernment with a right wing politic. the law have some "left" thing, but the reason they protest is because the large part is right-wing wanabee.
    Second, like other law, it will not be punished unless the guy say they spam and harass him. And generally if he do that, he can forfeit is job.

  17. #17
    French executives are the worst. A friend of mine that works in a company bought by a big french corporation regularly receives downright aggressive e-mails during weekends and even holidays (they were e-mailing her on Christmas Day to remind her about deadlines) and she would get flak if she wouldn't respond immediately. So I can see why the state had to step in to set some rules.

  18. #18
    Not sure if I agree with the way France handled it, but constantly needing to be "on" in case you get messages or e-mails is one of the most stressful and difficult things to deal with, and most people don't account for how much work it is. I don't think it should be illegal if an employee wants to be a go-getter and keep up with stuff from home, but its not really a day off if your work can demand your attention at any point in time.

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  20. #20
    So, if I understand this correctly, this is a regulation for the businesses themselves, not the employees correct?

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