Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers • Hacker News Board

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#231

Post by preg_match » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 8:02 PM UTC

nfw2 wrote: post #143

preg_match wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If long and irregular hours are expected, then those hours should be tracked and paid out at a rate. Companies absolutely abuse salary exemptions and it’s getting ridiculous. If you have to “clock in” at the exact same time every day, “clock out” at the exact same time every day, and are expected to work additional scheduled hours outside of work, you should be paid hourly and receive overtime. You are an hourly empl…

If I am paid on salary, I would rather just be trusted to meet deliverable dates than have to worry about clocking in. If that isn't amenable to you, don't agree to it. Why does this government need to butt in?

The government needs to butt in because this arrangement doesn’t benefit the employer. They would prefer you “clock in” while still receiving a salary exempt pay check.

So, why would they do something that works against them? Think about it. Do you go out of your way to advocate against yourself? No, right? So why would you expect them to do that? It’s just not a reasonable expectation.

Now, they might still do it anyway. Great, but you can’t expect that. So, we need to curb the incentives to get the desired behavior.

It’s just the dynamics of human behavior. Companies aren’t some magical beast - they, too, fact the push and pull of human behavior and incentives.

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#232

Post by quadrifoliate » Mon, Jun 29, 2026, 8:12 PM UTC

jackfischer wrote: post #220

quadrifoliate wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is this a government issue at all? For the same reason anything is a government issue, i.e. that we regulate acceptable and unacceptable behaviors as a society, and periodically adjust what we find acceptable? If your employer starts dumping large amounts of trash on your property tomorrow and says "oh that's just part of our relationship with you", I bet you'll want to get the government involved real quick be…

The line of what rises to the level of "solve it with force", eg solve it with legal intervention, is understandably blurry. But in the trash example, if you indeed never agreed to it, that's already a legal issue and rightly so. This OTOH is a private aspect of the employee employer relationship and not exactly a human rights abuse like some of the pearl clutching comments here suggest FWIW writing as someone who we…

If you signed a contract to do all-hours firefighting, this still doesn't affect that.

> But in the trash example, if you indeed never agreed to it, that's already a legal issue and rightly so.

That's exactly what this legislation is doing. All it's saying is, if you want off-hours work, make it explicit rather than implicit. If you fire people by expecting firefighting when it's not specified in the contract, you will break the law.

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#233

Post by lokar » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 1:40 AM UTC

functionmouse wrote: post #116

lokar wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assume good faith. Don’t cross examine.

> assume good faith Becoming harder and harder by the day as the internet and society change, with the bots and the growing inequality and all.

I just mean here. That’s in the faq.

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#234

Post by p2detar » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 4:34 AM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #114

throe9393i44i wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second phone?

If a device is owned by a corporate entity it becomes trivial for them to engage in wildly intrusive monitoring. For example, if Apple can verify the device was purchased by a corporate entity and then enrolled in an mobile device management system, it will allow a lot of things that it won't allow on a personal device - things that can be used for monitoring.

> wildly intrusive monitoring.

Like what for example? They can’t access any chat messages or app data. Even your location is impossible to obtain without your knowledge.

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#235

Post by Henchman21 » Tue, Jun 30, 2026, 8:51 PM UTC

jackfischer wrote: post #221

Henchman21 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government is meant, in part, to give some amount of power & push-back to the least among us. Representative government is the solution we arrived at after we decided it was kinda shitty to just kill each other. Why are you trying to deny people the representation they deserve and prevent the government from doing something people might want? Seems like some ideologically-based bullshit to me.

_Some_ people _might_ want - and a very privileged something at that! This is not west virginia coal wars. Why do a handful of ideologues get to insert themselves in the employee employer relationship for something so tame?

Because that is the form of government we have. We seek redress to our grievances in the way these folks have acted. Your POV is essentially “shut up and take it” or “find a new job”. Neither of these addresses the issue being raised. Nor does the idea that this is somehow “too tame” — that’s just dismissive.

Again I ask why you seek to deny others their rights?

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#236

Post by encrypted_bird » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 3:35 AM UTC

genewitch wrote: post #208

encrypted_bird wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that happens a LOT in retail is, say if a store closes at 10pm, a customer will walk in at 9:58pm, be there for 30 min to an hour, and employees HAVE to stay until they leave and cannot kick them out. If they do, they can get written up. Not all businesses do this obviously, but I've worked in retail long enough to have seen this happen a lot.

that's fine if the business is paying overtime for those employees, i imagine if that bumps them above 32 hours (for health coverage requirements) or over 40 hours thus requiring overtime, and it happens enough, they'll hire a minimum wage security guard to keep customers from coming in at 2 'til.

Haha, no way is the store I'm talking about ever hiring a security guard. Corporate doesn't give them enough money to hire enough people, let alone a security guard.

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#237

Post by geor9e » Fri, Jul 03, 2026, 6:14 PM UTC

cebert wrote: post #131

geor9e wrote: post #30

it's spelled "comms" although that is still jargon and the actual headline is "contact"

HN has a restriction on title length. I had to shorten the title somewhere. I’m curious what you would have shortened instead of just being snarky.

your title was 2 characters under the limit and i genuinely didn't know what "coms" meant until i clicked thru

Re: Michigan bill would bar employers from requiring after-hours coms with workers

#238

Post by zoobaloo » Fri, Jul 10, 2026, 5:43 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #187

zoobaloo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a point, and I share your general concern with bureaucracy. However, I'd encourage you to consider how I've seen employment law situations like this play out in practice. Some examples: * Management pressuring someone to forge tax documents, and firing said employee when they refused. They even provided a written statement stating this as the reason. * Someone getting fired for refusing to use grant funding…

> It can also reduce ambiguity when negotiating with an employer who is unwilling or unable to respect their liability. I'm don't think your comment supports your conclusion. Your comment explains that employers are capable of ignoring the law wholesale and engaging in highly illegal acts, but then you conclude that adding more laws will influence them. The link seems very tenuous, the comment actually seems to be ma…

I think you may have missed my point.

I'm trying to say that clearly worded laws provide complainants with more leverage when it's time to negotiate. Ambiguous language or a lack of established cause of action make it easier for someone who doesn't want to listen to drag out the argument.

I've seen the presence of clear laws play out to the advantage of the employee. Eventually corporate counsel sees the liability the company is exposed to and convinces the employer to settle in a more generous fashion than they might otherwise.

It would be great if this need to negotiate could be avoided entirely, but I share your pessimism that written laws alone do not stop bad actors. They can come in handy when things devolve into a legal argument, however.