Is there no problem, these days, which can’t be fixed by the state? When the cry goes up “Why doesn’t someone do something about it?”, that someone is almost always government.
Labour’s plan to give staff a “right to disconnect”, to stop bosses contacting them out of hours, feels like a classic of the genre. Burnout is real. But one reason home and work lives have become so blurred is that so many of us have chosen to work from home. I’m not sure how the same politicians who support “flexible working” can simultaneously second-guess our working day. If I collect my child from school in the afternoon, then get back to my desk in the evening, should I not send any emails? What if I’m contacting colleagues in another timezone or working on a corporate deal?
Having some kind of formal permission to switch off feels attractive. Scrolling through emails just before bedtime can raise the blood pressure. I’ve recently started using the “schedule send” function, so that emails I write late at night don’t land until 9am the next morning. And I’ve noticed a lot of people now have email footers assuring me their message isn’t urgent.
But this is proof that organisations are already adjusting. Much has been made of the fact that France and Spain have introduced a right to disconnect. But France already has the 35-hour working week — a policy that has had to spawn exemptions to accommodate the real world. One rule of thumb for policymaking might be: don’t pass a law that will be...
Dish Wireless LLC agreed to pay roughly $17 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act, common law, and the Communications Act of 1934 relating to claims submitted to Fed...