A recent French law gives workers the right to disconnect from their digital devices when off-work. This is an intriguing idea that other industrialized nations should consider imitating.
Some advocates cite the constant potential of immediate work obligations as contributing to greater levels of anxiety and burnout among modern workers. I can speak from personal experience about the alarm one feels upon receiving an urgent work-related e-mail at 7:15 in the evening. Plans have to be changed, and the few hours of free time at the end of the day are forfeited.
I agree with the French law’s proponents that employer’s abilities to routinely make demands upon workers at all hours should be regulated and limited. Of course, North Americans tend to be more skeptical than Europeans of such regulations. From a more laissez-faire perspective preferred by many Americans, it would be ideologically preferable to let employers optionally adopt a “right to disconnect” policy as a perk for workers, giving them a competitive advantage in the hiring market. However, there is a limit to which employers are willing to offer special incentives that may damage the bottom line, particularly for lower-status workers, whose wages and benefits have tended to remain stagnant in the U.S. for decades. Furthermore, like so many other practices, a constantly on-call workplace can become an endemic part of work culture in some industries, and only legislation will restrain many employers.
Some valid objections exist to the French law. If similar legislation were introduced in North America, there would probably need to be exemptions for workplaces that protect the public. There is no alternative to having police officers, firefighters, doctors, and EMTs available on-call, because public safety requires them to deploy at short notice in an emergency. Also, the law might offer an exemption for small start-ups or self-employed people. Like progressive taxation, progressive legislation is often most effective when it binds even the most powerful corporate forces in the country, such as large law firms, investment banks, advertising agencies, and tech firms.
Indeed, the problem of off-work texts and e-mails applies most directly to white-collar professions. A chef at a restaurant who drives a 30-minute commute home cannot plausibly be required to cook a meal and deliver it to the restaurant within 2 hours during her off-day. She probably will not have the necessary ingredients and equipment. Such tangible work usually requires that the worker be physically present at the work site. However, computer and document-based work can be completed from anywhere, thanks to the convenience of laptops and wireless internet access. This reality is both blessing and curse. It’s great that people (especially parents and caregivers) can work from home more easily. However, the downside is the now-present expectation among some companies that people can be compelled to work anytime, anywhere.
In the United States, we often define “freedom” as only freedom from government. For people who work in the private sector, however, their employers are often the primary institutions restricting their day-to-day freedom, which philosophy professor Elizabeth Anderson has astutely recognized as a blind spot in the American concept of liberty. Companies also provide workers with their livelihood and produce goods and services for people, so their motives for restricting individual autonomy are generally justifiable. But some limits should still be placed on this power.
During the 19th and 20th Centuries, organized workers around the developed world successfully lobbied to achieve the 40-hour standard work week. In countries like France, where strikes are still not uncommon, people retain a consciousness that they have the power to stand up to, and negotiate with, their employers. Perhaps this cultural recognition of the legitimacy and efficacy of mass agitation is a lasting legacy of the French Revolution. In the United States, we tend to fetishize “hard work” as being the main measurement of individual character. We view our career success as the cornerstone of our individual identity and self-worth. While hard work and entrepreneurialism are certainly admirable qualities, taken to excess, they may lead to burnout and passivity in the face of exploitation. Workers can be manipulated into displays of tireless effort and loyalty in an attempt to outcompete with co-workers for promotions and achieve a higher rung on the corporate ladder, never considering that employees could collectively have a better quality of life if they banded together in solidarity with their colleagues to negotiate more favorable treatment from management.
The tendency among milennials to value work / life balance is a hopeful sign for advocates of a more humane workplace environment. I remain skeptical of Universal Basic Income precisely because I believe that meaningful work is necessary for human flourishing. But I also think that workplaces should not pressure employees to sacrifice health, family, romance, cultural activities, civic engagement, religious observances, hobbies, and sleep in order to maintain steady employment. Unfortunately, in the 21st Century U.S. economy, even our more prosperous people subject themselves to a punishingly large number of work hours in order to remain in their employers’ good graces. Company demands also compel them to constantly check their phones even when they are nominally “off from work.” The recent French law respecting a “right to disconnect” may be a small step toward an improved Internet-era economic structure, one that could be more harmonious with, and less disruptive of, a rich and well-balanced life.