I got news for you. This goes on in America too. I am a manager in my company and I am not allowed to contact any employee after 5PM unless I am willing to pay them overtime.
One of our clients, a railroad, has asked us to restrict ourselves from calling their maintenance personnel directly, as they may be in their government-mandated rest period at any given time. This can happen when they’ve had to work overtime and their rest period extends into the next normal working hours.
Instead, we are asked to contact their supervisor, who can advise whether the employee is actually working at that time.
Those hours of service laws are a pain, but they are so very necessary to help protect the railroads - and the employees themselves - from accidents that are caused/contributed to by lack of adequate rest.
I am sometimes required to be on call (without pay) over the weekends. If I get called and have to work I get paid, which is fine, but I get no calls (and no pay) most times despite being tethered to the phone all weekend. That doesn’t seem fair to me.
Idiotic. This is the equivalent of being forbidden to put something on their desk after 5 p.m. Nothing requires them to immediately respond to e-mail sent after they’ve gone home. I like returning phone calls and responding to e-mail after hours. Many of the people whom I write or return calls to are in different time zones anyway.
I believe there was a court ruling a few years ago where it was found that by expecting employees to react to these communications 24/7 it was the same as never being off the clock. Some guys got awarded a whole buttload of back pay....perhaps enough to put that company out of business.