Portugal Makes it Illegal for Your Boss to Text You After Work

[Jilly_in_VA]

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 penalised 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.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkpdan/portugal-makes-it-illegal-for-your-boss-to-text-you-after-work
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*sigh* It can't happen here.

[CrispyQ]

2. Good for them!

The electronic leash, where corporate America invades your private life.

I worked in the IT department of a very well known company & for the nine months I lasted there, we had four job openings that were never filled. Basically 12 of us were doing the job of 16. They gave us pagers & laptops & in the evening, I had about an hour at home to eat & feed the dogs & cats before I had to log on & do more work. When our team got too discouraged, our manager would interview some poor suckers who thought they might actually get a job, so we'd think relief was coming, but no one was ever hired. After the second time they did this I quit. And of course we were all on salary & not compensated for our private time spent doing company work.

[Johnny2X2X]

3. The US is coming around too

I know people think of corporations as these weird all powerful entities, but they're boards and management are made up of regular people. Most of whom are younger now and went to business school is the last few decades. Work life balance and good corporate citizenship have been being emphasized in business school for a couple decades now. Young managers are at least aware of these concepts and their benefits. I think you're seeing highly skilled and degreed workers leading the changes in the US right now. Engineers for instance are in short supply, they know they can demand work life balance and work from home right now.

Things change slowly, but they change.

[LakeArenal]

4. OMG. I had a terrible boss who texted a co-worker 21 times during her mother's funeral.

He was the most toxic man I ever knew.

[Sympthsical]

5. Yeah, work from home has blurred all kinds of boundaries

Both my partner and I necessarily have to be available 24 hours because we're both management in our respective jobs and sometimes something serious can happen. He gets this more than me. But with both our jobs, it is deeply understood that any calls past our "official" stop times had better be good. Everything else goes into an e-mail.

He's better than me about this. He'll leave his work phone upstairs with the ringer on and not look at it after 6 pm. With me, the probability I'll answer a post-work e-mail after hours is pretty high. I often do a quick survey before bed, because we have second and third shifts at work, and who knows what goes on sometimes. I just like keeping on top of things for personal contentment.

I have a co-worker who will literally answer any e-mail or text within five minutes of it being sent. I have no idea why. I will sometimes not send an e-mail to her until the next morning, because I know it is not worth her disrupting her personal time with it. No one asks that she do this. I've even told her on several occasions, "You know, you can leave things alone until the next day." No, she just has to do it. It's her personality.

But I have friends, particularly in tech, where their managers do not understand the concept of work hours. "We employ you, don't we? This is your job." I could never do it. It would drive me wild.

The other morning, partner looked at his phone. "Huh. One of the managers called at 12:30a. Wonder what that was about." Totally indifferent. The man does not care.

[MichMan]

6. Hope they have some exceptions

I have received texts from my boss telling me not to come in because the plant was closed due to big amounts of snowfall or a power outage. If this law was in the US, I would have to drive 20 miles through a blizzard for nothing.

Does it also mean employees are forbidden to text their boss to inform them of a family emergency or sickness?