The Conversation (0)
Joel Beard
May 13, 2023
Starmer says party will go 'further than New Labour' under his leadership
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Many of us strive for a proper work-life balance, and under plans drawn up by Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner, your boss could be blocked from messaging you outside of work if her party wins the next general election.
The Financial Times reports the party, helmed by Sir Keir Starmer, will include proposals enforcing the “right to switch off” in their next manifesto as part of a “New Deal for Working People”.
It means controversial ‘zero-hours contracts’ – whereby no minimum working hours are required, and work is provided as and when required – would be banned by Labour, with a block on ‘fire and rehire’ also planned to stop employers sacking staff and re-employing them again on worser conditions.
Ms Rayner, who is also the shadow secretary for the future of work told FT: “Constant emails and calls outside of work should not be the norm and is harming work-life balance for many.
“We will look at how to implement this in practice, learning from countries where it has been introduced successfully.”
It’s not unusual, either, as France passed a new law in 2016 which granted its citizens the “right to disconnect” from work out of hours. Two years later, the French arm of British company Rentokil had to pay an ex-employee €60,000 after it breached the legislation.
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However, the proposals have already proved divisive with people on Twitter, with some questioning how this will apply to MPs and ministers themselves:
\u201cJust like those around the Home Office proposing to scrap secure comms systems like Whatsapp, the crucial question is: are MPs, parties and shadow ministers advocating this policy willing to apply it to their management of their own staff currently?\u201d— Mark Wallace (@Mark Wallace) 1683986075
\u201cThis is counterintuitive. The kind of email jobs that are in question here are generally respectful of working hours but, even so, trying to cram every bit of organisation and communication into those working hours creates undue stress\u201d— Franklin (@Franklin) 1683975104
\u201cIdiotic on so many levels - not least because it reinforces the image of Labour as wanting to legislate for every aspect of life\u201d— Stephen Pollard (@Stephen Pollard) 1683971589
\u201cI\u2019m sure every politician in the labour party will immediately model this and not contact any of their aides outside 9-6.\u201d— Rachel Wolf (@Rachel Wolf) 1683971420
\u201cTotally unworkable. Labour MPs wouldn\u2019t be able to enforce this in their own offices, never mind businesses that have clients overseas. It\u2019s the sort of legislation that could only be thought up by an unholy alliance of unions and nanny statists.\u201d— Bella Wallersteiner \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@Bella Wallersteiner \ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1683969208
\u201cMy favourite thing about this is just how would this work for the Labour Party themselves in power? Are they going to move spads and civil servants to shifts to ensure cover, will Ministers be uncontactable over the weekend?\u201d— Matt Kilcoyne (@Matt Kilcoyne) 1683967926
\u201cHow would this work if one's manager is in a different timezone?\n\nOne of the reasons I sometimes do work (for just a short burst) in the evenings is also that I have a lot of US colleagues and I'd prefer (emphasis on prefer) to spend 20 mins at 9 pm replying to them.\u201d— Benjamin Lewis (@Benjamin Lewis) 1683967468
\u201cAnd that\u2019s why we use Teams or Slack\u201d— Peter Hague PhD (@Peter Hague PhD) 1683985901
Others were on board with the idea:
\u201chuge fan of this\u201d— Liam Emmerson (@Liam Emmerson) 1683974721
\u201cOkay, this is really good actually\u201d— \u2728 Hunnybee \ud83d\udc95 (@\u2728 Hunnybee \ud83d\udc95) 1683976670
\u201cThis isn\u2019t a crazy idea. Although internal work messaging apps are almost certainly the biggest offender for unnecessary after hours work messages, especially in multinationals.\u201d— David Skelton \ud83c\udff4\udb40\udc67\udb40\udc62\udb40\udc65\udb40\udc6e\udb40\udc67\udb40\udc7f\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@David Skelton \ud83c\udff4\udb40\udc67\udb40\udc62\udb40\udc65\udb40\udc6e\udb40\udc67\udb40\udc7f\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1683967451
\u201cGreat policy - has been done in several other countries. But to make it workable for people in comms/media will need thinking through\u201d— Freya Barnes (@Freya Barnes) 1683968593
Given how much the Tories enjoy WhatsApp groups, we can’t help but feel like they don’t like this idea at all…
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