How common are employment policies as explicit as the following:
Let’s leave aside the contradiction of “voluntary mandatory shift coverage” for the moment. Doesn’t this look like a form of slavery?
In some places and times, medieval serfs were attached to the lands they farmed. They were forbidden to leave for a better deal. The land baron asserted ownership over them as well as over their homes and produce. How different is it to be shackled to one’s job via a telephone?
It has been said, and truly, that men were freer when their phones were attached to the wall.
I suppose that were a prospective employee to be informed up front of the “on call 24/7” requirements of the position he’d been offered, it would be a legally acceptable sort of deal for an employer to offer. But for the boss to spring it on him after he’d taken the offer would be a form of fraud. Yet that’s been happening with increasing frequency to persons in certain occupations – and the higher the stress associated with the occupation, the more likely it is.
Other, similar conditions have been sprung on new employees. I worked briefly for a firm whose VP believed he had first call on every one of his subordinates’ waking hours. I worked for another who had no compunctions about demanding six days per week, ten hours per day from his people “in emergencies.” And nearly all supervisors feel perfectly justified about calling their people during off-shift hours, should the demands of the moment warrant it.
There are occupations where a demand for that kind of round-the-clock responsiveness can be justified. Some positions in the police come to mind; so do command-level positions in the military. But most white-collar occupations “should” be more relaxed. How did we reach the current state of affairs, in which every salaried employee is tethered to his job by his cell phone?
It doesn’t seem like an advance to me.
“Gentlemen, progress has never been a bargain. You’ve got to pay for it. Sometimes I think there’s a man behind a counter who says, ‘All right, you can have a telephone, but you’ll have to give up privacy, the charm of distance.’” – Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, Inherit the Wind
I remember thinking that Star Trek “communicators” would be a marvel to possess. To be in touch with family and friends at all times! Never unable to summon aid in an emergency! Yet they were a pale shadow of today’s “smart” cell phone.
The cell phone is progress of a sort. Being able to contact others no matter where you – or they – are is certainly handy now and then. Add the multifarious features of the smart phone, and wonder of wonders! Instant access to all the information and entertainment in the world rests in one’s hand. But the loss of privacy is a serious counterweight to those things. The inability to say to another that “I have no access to that right now” puts all one’s knowledge and expertise at the disposal of the caller.
Employers have been ruthless about exploiting that bit of progress. The abuses are most common in “employment at will” states, where an explicit labor contract is not required and the terms of one’s employment are nebulous. Salaried workers are deemed available, de facto, at every instant of their lives. Differences of opinion about that are usually resolved in the boss’s favor.
And there is absolutely nothing to be done about it.
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