Work and the pandemic 工作和疫情

Only disconnect

The difficulties of policing remote work

第一段：

As office life approaches some sort of new normal, remote working is here to stay. Employers enjoy cost savings as they spend less on desks and floor space. For employees the promise is of time saved: spared of their commute, they can get their work done and focus on their families and hobbies. That, at least, is the idea. But, as many a remote employee knows, the boundary between work and home life can blur. 

随着办公室生活接近某种新常态，远程工作将继续存在。在办公桌和租金的花费更少，因此可以节省成本，这是雇主们喜闻乐见的。对员工来说，节省时间是有可期的：不用通勤上下班，他们就可以完成工作，还可以专注于家庭和爱好。至少，理论上是如此。但是，正如许多远程办公雇员所知，工作和家庭生活之间的界限可能会模糊。

第二段：

Some governments and employers are trying to restore balance. In November Portugal announced legislation that, according to Ana Mendes Godinho, its labour minister, seeks to make the most of teletrabalho (remote work) while mitigating the downsides. Bosses are now banned from calling their employees “after hours”: those who make contact outside previously agreed times could be fined more than €9,000 ($10,000). Employers are also required to provide remote-working equipment and reimburse electricity and internet costs, and must hold in-person meetings twice a month, to help combat isolation.

一些政府和雇主正努力帮助恢复生活与工作间的平衡。11月，根据葡萄牙劳工部长安娜·门德斯·戈迪尼奥所说，葡萄牙宣布了一项立法，旨在缓解不利因素的同时，还充分利用远程办公的优势。老板们现在被禁止在“下班后”给员工打电话：那些在事先约定的工作时间之外打电话的老板可能会被罚款9000欧元以上（约10000美元）。雇主还需要提供远程工作设备，报销电费和互联网费用，并且必须每月召开两次面对面的线下会议，以帮助消除孤独感。

第三段：

Several European countries had similar rules in place even before covid-19. In 2017 the “right to disconnect”, which allowed workers to ignore after-hours texts, emails or calls from their bosses without fear of repercussion, took effect in France. Italy followed soon after. Earlier this year Ireland said workers could disregard late emails and calls.

几个欧洲国家在新冠之前就有类似的规定。2017年，“离线权利”在法国生效，该权利允许员工在下班后忽略来自老板的短信、电子邮件或电话，而不必担心后果。意大利紧随其后。今年早些时候，爱尔兰表示，员工可以不用理会下班后的电子邮件和电话。

第四段：

Whether legislation can bring hours down, though, is unclear. Ambitious workers have plenty of incentive to pick up a call from their boss long after 5pm has come and gone; by comparison they stand to gain little from reporting violations of the law and landing their employer with a fine.

然而，立法是否能减少工作时间尚不清楚。雄心勃勃的员工有足够的动力在下午5点之后反反复复接听老板的电话；相比之下，他们举报违法行为及使雇主被罚款，在这过程中获益甚微。

第五段：

Then there is the practical difficulty of agreeing on when workers should be contactable, something that is often left to be negotiated between employer and employee. In France and Italy there is no obligation to find an agreement. Aside from one widely publicised court decision in 2018 ordering a pest-control company to pay €60,000 to an employee it had required to be reachable at all times in case of an emergency, little has come of the law in France. Even Ms Mendes Godinho’s office communicated with your correspondent at 7pm.

此外，就何时应与工人联系达成一致也存在实际困难，这通常需要雇主和雇员之间进行协商。法国和意大利不必非达成协议不可。除了2018年一项广为宣传的法庭判决，命令一家虫害防治公司向一名员工支付6万欧元，该公司要求员工在紧急情况下随时可以联系到该员工。法国的相关法律几乎没有出台。甚至门德斯·戈迪尼奥女士的办公室，也还在晚上7点与你的记者进行了沟通。

第六段：

Perhaps change must come from within. In Japan, where toiling any less than 50 hours can be interpreted as a lack of commitment to the job, half of all workers were already back in the office at least three days a week by April 2021. But even there employers are responding to workers’ demands for a better work-life balance. Fujitsu, a technology giant, has introduced flexible hours and allows remote work. Elsewhere, the number of chief remote officers is proliferating. But few companies have gone as far as Volkswagen. For the past decade, the German carmaker’s servers have ensured that employees covered by a collective-pay agreement do not receive work emails on their phones between 6.15pm and 7am.

也许变革必须来自内部。在日本，工作时间少于50小时可以被认为对工作不敬业。到2021年4月为止，一半的工人每周至少有三天回到办公室上班。但即便如此，雇主也在积极满足工人们对更好的工作生活平衡的要求。富士通，一家科技巨头，引入了灵活的工作时间制度，并允许远程办公。在其他地方，首席远程官的数量正在激增。但很少有公司能像大众汽车那么早。在过去十年中，这家德国汽车制造商的达成了一项集体薪酬协议，涵盖的相关员工在晚上6:15-早上7:00间，他们的手机上不会收到工作邮件。