PARIS — Given France’s 35-hour workweek, generous vacations and persistent, if not altogether accurate, reputation for indolence, it may come as a surprise that the French are only now considering limits on the work emails and phone calls that come at all hours of the day and night.
Labor unions and corporate representatives in France have agreed on an “obligation to disconnect from remote communications tools” that would apply to 250,000 employees of consulting, computing and polling firms. The accord, signed this month but yet to be approved by the Labor Ministry, would require that employers verify that the 11 hours of daily “rest” time to which all workers are legally entitled be spent uninterrupted.
“We really want there to be 11 consecutive hours,” said Marie Buard, a project leader at the Federation of Communication, Consulting and Culture, a branch of the French Democratic Confederation of Labor. Still, Ms. Buard said, “We also wouldn’t like this to squeeze businesses and cause them problems.”
Under the agreement, she said, each company would develop a policy and enforcement mechanisms. One might choose to block communications from 11 p.m. to 10 a.m. by shutting down its email servers, while another might simply ask employees not to check email between 9 p.m. and 8 a.m.
Similar limits have been tested elsewhere. In 2011, Volkswagen started shutting off its BlackBerry servers at the end of the workday,...
|
Related Articles on Off-Premises Liability:
Apr 01, 2014
The NJ Supreme Court declared the nature of the employer's control determines compensability in an off-premises parking lot claim. The Court ruled that the NJ 1979 Legislative amendments mandate that the "coming and ...
Jan 21, 2014
Livingstone, supra, 111 N.J. at 102. Harrah's contention that Livingstone sought to limit 'judicially-created exceptions to the general noncompensability of off-premises accidents . . . .' is correct. Livingstone, supra, 111 N.J. at.
Jan 18, 2014
The NJ Supreme Court was presented by the defense that the accident occurred off premises and out of the control of the employer. The employee argued that the injury occurred within the course of the employment because ...
Mar 23, 2013
A NJ appellate court ruled that an employee who was severely injured in a parking lot as a result of a slip and fall was not entitled to workers' compensation benefits since the injury occurred “off the premises” and the ...
Related articles:
