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

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

#221

Post by jackfischer »

Henchman21 wrote: post #161
jackfischer wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this a government issue at all? It was unclear from the article why some contingent that doesn't like their relationship with their employer ought to be able to inflict their solution on everyone in Michigan via politics as the mechanism instead of the market

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?

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

#222

Post by jackfischer »

geetee wrote: post #15
headz wrote: post #10

It kind of baffles me that this needs to be a bill. I guess I'm lucky that I've never worked for a company that required me to be constantly online. (I work remotely for a US company, work European working hours, and nobody requires me to be online outside of them.)

I've worked at companies that don't outright require it, but they utilize a few workaholic employees to set an expectation sane people can't live up to. It creates a stressful environment where expectations are unclear. Combine that with the current job market and you effectively hold your employees hostage.

Ultimately companies don't exist for the employees they exist to deliver something to the customers that rely on you. Stress and uncertainty are part of work and life. Why should that come before the people you're serving?

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

#223

Post by jackfischer »

rainsford wrote: post #166
jackfischer wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is this a government issue at all? It was unclear from the article why some contingent that doesn't like their relationship with their employer ought to be able to inflict their solution on everyone in Michigan via politics as the mechanism instead of the market

Government regulation around conditions of employment has a very long history, because "the market" has a long history of producing things like Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire when it's allowed to. While in theory the market punishes bad employers by making people not want to work for them, the reality is that for all but the most in-demand individuals, the power asymmetry between an individual and their employer is…

Broadly agreed. But the triangle shirtwaist factory is about as far from "my boss calls me and it's stressful" as one can get! I'm disappointed that a some activists can inflict their preference for comfort on all of us.

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

#224

Post by nekusar »

genewitch wrote: post #205
nekusar wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who choose MIT or BSD licenses etm are idiots. I'm staunchly for AGPL3, and harsh and strong enforcement actions against violators. You know, what the companies would do to us. Tit for tat.

i like giving stuff away for free, but if it's tenable for the market i'll look at agpl3. The thing that would break my spirit is if something i made was used, for free, by a company to infringe on privacy or show interstitial ads. I used to not care, now i do.

That's why the Affero GPL3.

Stops tivo-ization. And stops app-ification (making a GPL3 into a webapp and significant changes, but not sharing as well).

But most of the FLOSS orgs (FSF, etc) don't want blood from violator companies. Instead they just want mealy-mouth halfassed responses that amount to 'open the source'.

I remember what happened to copyright violators who copied Metallica and Britnry Spears back in the early 2000's. Fucking kids got hit with $4000 settlements or $135000 lawsuits.

That's the type of vigor and destructiveness I want FLOSS orgs to go after for-profit copyright violators.

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

#225

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

yamillove wrote: post #180
galleywest200 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizens are not employees of politicians. Only the politician’s staffers are. Arguably the politician works for us so we can decide their working hours.

[flagged]

I think that you might have an easier time in the rest of your life if you start considering, among other things, the concept of "figure of speech."

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

#226

Post by croon »

SE5pc3JhY2lzdA wrote: post #201
quadrifoliate wrote: post #44

Lots of privilege in this thread showing. This is the equivalent of "what global warming, it was so cold today". Please remember that just because you aren't expected to have consistent unpaid after-hours comms doesn't mean that others don't. Bills like this would help a lot of people who are victims of "can you just take a look at this real quick" at 6pm. It does need to be at the country level though, otherwise emp…

This is the equivalent of "what global warming, it was so cold today" Conversely, I've seen the latest heat wave in France to try to justify global warming all over HN comments, when the reality is that this is temperature and not climate. "Bills like this would help a lot of people who are victims of "can you just take a look at this real quick" at 6pm. It does need to be at the country level though, otherwise emplo…

One instance of weather is not climate, but climate dictates variance in weather.

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

#227

Post by laughing_man »

fossilwater wrote: post #217
duxup wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think "this doesn't happen to me" is a valid response. We're all here sharing. I find the internet full of panic and fear and negativity these days and it overstates how pervasive a thing is. Example: I travel to Disney World sometimes. There's a recent hubub about transportation and the blame is all on "OMG THE INFLUENCERS ARE EVERYWHERE". In those situations it's interesting how many people will spread those stor…

While abusive work environments may not be the norm for the majority of people, this being a law will benefit everyone. Saying this doesn't happen to you in threads like this just signifies that you don't care, you basically downplay other people's bad experiences because well, it doesn't concern you. You may not be affected now but you never know when it will happen to you or to someone close to you, and you would b…

> ... this being a law will benefit everyone.

If it were national, sure. As is, companies will see Michigan as a bad place to hire people, which was probably not the goal.

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

#228

Post by geetee »

jackfischer wrote: post #222
geetee wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked at companies that don't outright require it, but they utilize a few workaholic employees to set an expectation sane people can't live up to. It creates a stressful environment where expectations are unclear. Combine that with the current job market and you effectively hold your employees hostage.

Ultimately companies don't exist for the employees they exist to deliver something to the customers that rely on you. Stress and uncertainty are part of work and life. Why should that come before the people you're serving?

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?

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

#229

Post by yusefnapora »

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…

The proposed bill would still allow you to choose to be on-call. Your boss just has to compensate you for your time explicitly when it falls outside of agreed hours, instead of getting an implicit claim to your entire life by virtue of your employment agreement.

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

#230

Post by yamillove »

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #225
yamillove wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I think that you might have an easier time in the rest of your life if you start considering, among other things, the concept of "figure of speech."

Thanks
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