As of yesterday, the Quebec government has made all work that can be done from home mandatory. With a work-from-home order, multiple restrictions, and closures of businesses, people are spending exponentially more time at home than ever before. As a result, it can be difficult to draw a line between professional life and personal life.
A new proposed bill is fighting for a Quebecer's right to disconnect outside of work hours. bill 799 which was presented by MNA Alexandre Leduc puts emphasis on employees' rest time and argues that personal time should be valued and respected.
The bill would make it such that employers would have to set and abide by certain rest periods where employees will be allowed to totally disconnect from work-related tasks and programs such as Zoom, Teams, and Slack.
Bill 799 would ask companies and workplaces with more than 100 employees to develop an "off-duty connection policy" by a committee that is comprised of at least 50% employees.
Workplaces with less than 100 employees would also have to create their off-duty policy and have it approved by La Commission des normes, de l'équité, de la santé et de la sécurité du travail.
The bill states that companies who do not abide by the suggested policies would receive fines between 2000$ and 50,000$ for first offenses. The amount would be doubled for repeat offenses.
SOURCE: https://www.mtlblog.com/
