Editor’s note: This has been excerpted with permission from the Pacific Research Institute. To read the entire article, click here.

San Francisco Democrat Assemblyman Matt Haney wants to give California workers the right to ignore their bosses.

Under Assembly Bill 2751, employees would have the “right to disconnect” from calls, e-mails and texts from their employer outside of normal working hours.

Haney told the Bay Area News Group that “smartphones have blurred the boundaries between work and home life,” and that “workers shouldn’t be punished for not being available 24/7 if they are not being paid for 24 hours of work.”

It’s a shockingly simplistic view of how things work in today’s high tech economy. 

Take my work-life routine. Frequently, I send and respond to e-mails between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. before I go into the office. On weekends, I typically work about a half-day total over Saturday and Sunday, finalizing PRI’s podcast, editing blogs and op-eds, or completing expense reports. 

I don’t do this because PRI expects me to – I do so to make my work-life balance better. 

By responding to e-mails in the morning or working a little on the weekend, I can clear smaller items off my plate so I can focus on big picture items during the week. Starting my day early, I can better position PRI to take advantage of what’s going on the news. I can also address potential problems before they grow out of hand.

I would have a more hectic and stressful work week if Haney succeeded and I was prohibited from working at my discretion outside normal working hours.

Haney argues that “this bill has a lot of flexibility.” But enacting such a bill would actually take away people’s flexibility. 

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