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It's now officially illegal in Ontario for your boss to bug you after-hours

Author: colinprince

Score: 58

Comments: 34

Date: 2021-12-01 16:29:47

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hbrav wrote at 2021-12-01 19:22:14:

The part about banning non-compete agreements is promising, but I would suggest that anyone in Ontario check very carefully before assuming this applies to them. Ontario has previously exempted large classes of people from certain employment protections, including "IT professionals".

https://www.ontario.ca/document/industries-and-jobs-exemptio...

908B64B197 wrote at 2021-12-01 23:13:02:

Honestly, if your jurisdiction doesn't have the same non-compete laws as in California, that's a red flag.

ilrwbwrkhv wrote at 2021-12-01 16:55:51:

Super well done.

Ban the use of non-compete agreements that prevent people from exploring other work opportunities in order to make it easier for workers to advance in their careers.

This should be the norm everywhere.

Manouchehri wrote at 2021-12-01 22:32:25:

Even before this law, non-competes in Ontario were mostly an intimidation tactic.

I'm not entirely sure if this change does anything, since it _appears_ that employers can still put in a non-compete agreement (which is void, but still works as an intimidation tactic).

The only thing here that I can see the benefit of, is that the news coverage of non-competes being void, will make more employees aware that they're void.

robomc wrote at 2021-12-01 20:21:27:

Read the actual law guys, it's nothing like that headline.

https://www.ola.org/sites/default/files/node-files/bill/docu...

colinprince wrote at 2021-12-01 20:43:09:

I can see on page 3:

"[..] defined to mean not engaging in work-related communications [..] so as to be free from the performance of work."

The intention is there, are you saying it does not say it clearly?

skyde wrote at 2021-12-02 03:46:05:

is a pager from an automated system that detect the server are in fire part of « engaging in communication « ?

legerdemain wrote at 2021-12-01 19:04:33:

Unintended consequences in 3... 2... 1...

In general, legislation is a terrible solution where simple personal responsibility, team culture, and "voting with your feet" work best.

In before Ontario has a net outflow of devs to places that don't micromanage what kinds of messages I can send to my employees and at what hour. Some of the closest bonds I've built with other engineers happened at 5AM on a Monday morning because we need to debug a server failure live in prod. All hands on deck! Raise the hacker flag and pass out the RedBull! Tallyho!

robomc wrote at 2021-12-01 20:17:42:

If you need engineers to respond to server issues at 5am you can and should be paying them to be on call, and then paying them on top of that when an incident occurs. I don't think anything in this law (which doesn't seem to even resemble the headline of this article tbh) would prevent that.

CommanderData wrote at 2021-12-02 05:03:43:

Legislation here is great and I welcome it.

skyde wrote at 2021-12-02 03:54:05:

100 % agree

Should be extra pay just for the stress of being on call and not allowed to go make plan for your weekend (movie, camping …)

And some extra cash for each call you received

malermeister wrote at 2021-12-01 20:26:11:

> Some of the closest bonds I've built with other engineers happened at 5AM on a Monday morning because we need to debug a server failure live in prod. All hands on deck! Raise the hacker flag and pass out the RedBull!

See, this is exactly the toxic work culture this is preventing. I _don't want_ to be working at 5AM on a monday morning, and I don't want coworkers to do so either, creating cultural pressure I do.

There shouldn't be "personal responsibility" when it comes to workers rights and (self-)exploitation.

legerdemain wrote at 2021-12-01 23:54:19:

What in the world is "self-exploitation"? More woke college student hooey?

corinroyal wrote at 2021-12-02 02:18:33:

I wonder how long until conservatives realise how stupid they sound using the word "woke". Could be awhile give both their desire to offend, and lack of self-awareness.

onionisafruit wrote at 2021-12-02 04:46:28:

It’s normal to call your political adversary stupid names. See also teabagger and qcumber.

legerdemain wrote at 2021-12-02 05:16:16:

I don't think conservatives invented the word "woke." I think African Americans might have used the word before liberal arts students picked it up.

strathmeyer wrote at 2021-12-02 01:32:07:

We aren't against social justice here.

malermeister wrote at 2021-12-02 00:17:01:

Self-exploitation is an ideological control mechanism of the bourgeoisie in modern capitalism, where, instead of outright coercion, more insidious mechanisms are used to extract surplus value from labor.

By activating the worker's will to generate value and "empowering" them to partake in "hustle culture", they create a system in which they can seize surplus value while the subject isn't even aware of their own exploitation. (your comments are a prime example :))

See also the Gramscian notion of cultural hegemony for more details on the mechanisms at play here.

legerdemain wrote at 2021-12-02 05:19:47:

Your explanation lost me at "Gramscian."

malermeister wrote at 2021-12-02 06:36:03:

Sorry to hear that - it's not that hard to understand if you put your mind to it! Glad to hear you made it pretty far though!

legerdemain wrote at 2021-12-02 07:15:17:

If you can't avoid hiding behind a po-mo smoke screen of gurus like Gramsci/Deleuze/Guattari/Adorno/whoever, maybe you don't have a very clear or even meaningful claim.

malermeister wrote at 2021-12-02 07:42:08:

Not everything that goes above your head is a smoke screen :-)

CommanderData wrote at 2021-12-02 05:07:38:

Wishful thinking every employer would let employees "vote with your feet".

Not everyone wants to build relationships with colleagues especially as your son/daughter awaits you to finish work standing by your desk with their coloring pencils or if your a single mom weaning your child. I'll take the legislation for sure.

legerdemain wrote at 2021-12-02 05:13:22:

Did you mean wean or nurse? Children naturally wean themselves around two or three years old.

Daishiman wrote at 2021-12-01 21:20:38:

> In general, legislation is a terrible solution where simple personal responsibility, team culture, and "voting with your feet" work best.

The entirety of the labor rights movements was won by over by unionization, strikes, threats of violence and legal activism. If "voting with your feet" was the solution we'd still be working 12-hour days. For a more current example, we'd have on-calls being paid at least time-and-a-half for every hour you're available.

> Some of the closest bonds I've built with other engineers happened at 5AM on a Monday morning because we need to debug a server failure live in prod. All hands on deck! Raise the hacker flag and pass out the RedBull! Tallyho!

That's great bro. That's how I had my first outbreak of an autoimmune disease and years of insomnia and PTSD whenever my phone vibrated from years of being on-call from completely preventable causes.

dionidium wrote at 2021-12-01 19:06:35:

Can an employee opt-out? I don't mind when my boss contacts me after hours. I'm happy to jump on a serious issue in a timely manner, when needed. My boss has never abused this willingness and if he did I'd be happy to have a conversation with him about it myself. I don't need anybody else to intervene on my behalf.

smnrchrds wrote at 2021-12-01 19:12:03:

> _Can an employee opt-out?_

I am curious to know this for a different reason: if opt-out is possible, it will become a standard term in all employment contracts from now on, so this law might as well not exist. We know all too well from the cookie law that a law with opt-out turns completely useless before the ink is even dry.

kelnos wrote at 2021-12-01 21:38:33:

I hope not. Then "opting out" (wink wink) will become the standard, and employers won't hire you unless you "opt out".

malermeister wrote at 2021-12-02 21:26:18:

Other employees probably don't want you to be contacted after hours, as it sets the expectation that it's okay to contact them too.

This is to protect them, not you.

Daishiman wrote at 2021-12-01 21:23:23:

You can opt out in the same way that everyone opts out of legal protections: by doing whatever you want and not being a snitch about it. It works great when everyone's buddy-buddy and there's trust. It also gives you great leverage when things go south.

missedthecue wrote at 2021-12-01 20:56:53:

I agree, I don't mind getting contacted after hours

strathmeyer wrote at 2021-12-02 01:32:30:

Your employer can opt-out by paying you.

skyde wrote at 2021-12-02 03:43:39:

as a backend engineer i am on call 24/7 ..

How do they define « after hour »

dr-detroit wrote at 2021-12-01 17:38:05:

Cool maybe I should move there lets just see... average salary Ontario canada $ 52,260 in monopoly money $40,866.27 in petrobux... uhhhh, no.

tomashertus wrote at 2021-12-01 17:38:52:

Awesome! I can't wait when it will be officially illegal to work.