While official working hours might be 9-5, there are also unofficial working hours where despite the fact that you’re supposed to be off the clock, you are still expected to tend to emails and messages regarding work. The good news is that if you’re living in New York, that could change thanks to a recently proposed law.
In a report from The New York Times, a recently introduced bill will make it so that those working in New York will have the ability to close and ignore all communications that are work-related without any fear of reprisal. This law will make it so that private companies with 10 or more employees will be banned from requiring employees to respond to electronic work communications after work hours. This will cover communications such as email and text. Those who are caught doing so will be fined $250 for each instance of noncompliance.
According to Councilman Rafael Espinal who sponsored the bill, “So many of us are glued to our smartphones and our computers, it’s important to understand that we don’t have to feel as if our work has to spill into our personal lives.” Note that this doesn’t mean that all work-related communications is cut after office hours, but rather employees will no longer be obligated to reply to them and not be worried about getting fired or getting into trouble for being “lazy”.
New York is not the first to enact such a law as over in France they also have something similar. Recently in South Korea the government has proposed shutting off computers after 8PM to encourage workers to go home early.
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