LANSING, MI (WTVB) – Michigan employers would be legally prohibited from requiring workers to check or respond to work-related communications, such as emails, texts, and messages, outside of their regular scheduled hours under a proposed state “right to disconnect” bill.
Known as the Workplace Employee Boundaries Act (Senate Bill 948) the legislation aims to protect employee well-being by establishing firmer boundaries between personal time and the modern “always on” work culture.
The measure would also penalize companies up to $500 per violation and strictly forbid workplace retaliation against employees who choose to ignore after-hours communications.
While the proposal has drawn significant support from labor advocates, it is facing pushback from business groups and industry leaders who argue the mandate could disrupt operations.
Representatives from organizations like the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) warn that the restrictions could prove particularly burdensome for small business owners and those managing employees across multiple time zones.
The bill, which is currently being debated in the Senate Labor Committee, includes several key exceptions, allowing employers to contact off-duty staff during government-declared emergencies or to reach out to compensated, officially on-call employees.
I believe this is a great bill. Employees shouldn’t have to have any contact with company once they’re off work. Gateway: Employees could have an option to opt in or opt out, this should be solely up to the employee. Some employees don’t want extra work or to be contacted when they are off work. On the other hand, some employees are workaholic and encourages employer to contact them if someone call off. This bill should pass with an option to opt in or out. It’s the employer responsibility to operate his business smoothly not the responsibility of the employee to be burden because he needs help. And the employer should be mandated to pay time and a half. This would help encourage employees to opt in. Problem solved. Let the people who have families enjoy being with their families and the employees who don’t have families more likely want to be at work because they have no one to go home to.
You think that just because someone doesn’t have family they want to work all the time? Give me a break.
This law is in effect for any sane person with common sense. You get payed by work for work. When you are off the clock , NOBODY from your work has the right to talk to you if you don’t want them too. This is why every job I have ever had if I get a call from “work” off the clock, I ignore it with 0 consequences. If you are an employee , and your employer does this. Report them . Report them to H.R. the B.B.B. , hell , file a police report for harrassment. NO EMPLOYER CAN CONTACT YOU OFF THE CLOCK BECAUSE YOU ARE OFF THE CLOCK AND NO LONGER BEING PAID FOR YOUR SERVICES. So the next time an employer wants you to work “off clock” unpaid,remind them slavery is illegal.
It’s already in effect? I’m confused
Uh huh, companies have been doing this to people for decades. They do not care. You need a job, you have family kids mortgage. You can not just loose health care. Must be nice to be wealthy to just tell your bosses off like that. Or are you retired living off the social security taxes I pay.
Employers do not care about their employees. They pay them what they have to and if they leave oh well. Get another one. I am in the tech industry and we get the most stupid off hours calls. One place I was at the CEO called me Christmas day while I was eating Xmas lunch with family. He got a new internet router for home for Christmas and wanted help hooking it up.
Another thing they did was pit in monitoring of internet connections. So if they went down it would automatically call the person responsible for that location. Now we couldn’t do anything. Comcast was notorious for going out at 3 am. It would.come back 20 min or so later but every single time it went out I got phone calls texts waking me up. When I questioned why. Some manager said I need to know. Which no I do not need to know it is an office. No one is there at 3 am. There is nothing I can do about it anyway. Still they think I needed to know.
Its not just bosses it is people in general. You have no idea how many time I get a direct call from some person also employed there because 9:00 at nightnthey are working on some deadline they waited till last minute on and do not have access or can’t send an email or something. If you tell them to toss off then your reported as not being a team player and your yearly review you might not get a raise or even your bonus. If you could just ignore your boss without consequence then we wouldn’t need a law guaranteeing it
Sorry, folks. This is 2026, not 1926. The concept of a “job” didn’t even exist 400 years ago, you just “were” – a tailor, a smith, a shoemaker, etc. You lived above the shop and did what your father or mother did. You worked until the work was done, or the candles burned out. With the Industrial Age came the idea of mass production, assembly lines and shift work along with unions, clocking in and clocking out. The second (or third shift) picked up where you left off. We competed mostly on a national basis.
Today, we are in a post-industrial, Information, competing 24/7 on a global basis against discrepancies in costs of resources and labor. Lowest cost at the highest quality wins. Your “Buy American” Ford truck was built in Mexico and your Toyota Siena was built in Indiana.
If you don’t want calls from work after hours, you had better negotiate that up front as a condition of employment. Even if Congress passes a law, companies will find someone who will take that call and they will hire them as salaried “exempt” employees. There are plenty out there who will take that call. And another thing, expect the company to institute a policy of no cell phones at work. They don’t want you stealing their time on personal business. Afterall, AI-equipped robots wouldn’t do such a thing. Expect to check your cell phones at the door when you clock in with your lunch pail in hand, just like 1926.
I don’t suppose the $500 fine would end up in the pocket of the employee?
lol, makes it illegal Employer to retaliate that’s hilarious. Especially since we’re in a at-will state.
I wake up at 2:40am to work at 4am to at text telling me I’m not needed till 5am. Please pass this bill. And trucking companies should not be exempt
No way! This is government overreach. I’m against government interference with business and free enterprise. If your job requires or desires to reach you for an emergency, that’s between you and your employer to decide. It’s not some state bureaucrat’s place to set rules.
Hi Tom, I’ll permit you to live in your libertarian fantasy world, but the rest of us will keep on living in the one with government regulations and laws.
If we were back in time you’d be arguing against weekends, 8 hour work days, child labor laws and work site safety requirements
Hey Lorainne. I am about to blow your mind. People who don’t have kids, ALSO like their time away from work and have reasons to go home at night. Get bent.
This is great. If you want your employees time, they should be compensated for it. Plus, there is a law about anything over so many hours being overtime. If employees dont want to work past that, then they shouldn’t have to. We work to live, not live to work. Those of you making those big dollars, work yourself to death if you want, but dont expect others to do it for you. Says a lot about a company if they are pushing back on this and none of it is good.
This statement is comical, just pay the employee an hour, problem solved.
It’ll make employers think twice about contacting an employee while they are off the clock. They’ll ask themselves, “Do I really need to know where they put code 3 filters right now or can it wait until tomorrow morning.”
When it comes down to it employers abuse this situation and an employee should be paid if they are not on the clock.
An employee clocking in 10 minutes late doesn’t expect to get paid for that 10 minutes because they weren’t there. Same thing should apply to the employers.
This should be called the judge hartig bill. She threatened to fire a court reporter for not responding to her calls texts emails, anytime she called. Also, not allowing her to go 24 hours without checking in with her. Despite, physical or mental health challenges, some which were byproducts of the harassment. Everytime they make a bill, pass a law, it’s because someone took advantage of there not being one.
They need to word this so it only includes performing a work task you’re paid for during work hours.
There’s plenty of good reasons to text between boss and employee. Texting to the boss: Is it ok if I switch shifts with Robin tomorrow? I’m just letting you know I’ll be a little late since there’s an accident on I-75 and I’m stuck in traffic. I’m really feeling sick tonight so I won’t be in. Boss texting me: Do you want to work your off day tomorrow? I know you’re on vacation but there’s a check here for you. I’m sorry to let you know but your coworker died.
I agree that you shouldn’t work without compensation. Communication off the clock benefits everyone in different ways. The law needs to be specific. You could be fired or miss out on an opportunity to work if it’s a blanket law.
No the law is specifically against employers requiring employees to be on call for communication whenever they want.
Well I work for a company 25 years and most of the people that call are like family. Its a phone call. I have had my company number now for 25 years and I am on-Call 24 7 . For some one people it is the principle not the practical. I present to everyone you can call me anytime and it not even worth to have a conversation over, until I cut the grass and I do missed that important phone call. which is very rare.
So what if it’s an industrial type of job with a safety lockout/tagout procedure and the employee forgets to remove their locks? Is the company REQUIRED to stay unproductive until the employees next shift?
In 2007 I had a job in the healthcare field. I would be mandated to stay for an additional 8 hour shift because I had no kids. It was like I was punished. Those 16 hour shifts 2 8s back to back where grueling.
So……… how does this affect salary employees.?
I feel that if required or asked to be “oncall” by phone there should be compensation…
I know of a place that pays 1hr of your rate per call you take afterhours
Employers have to realize that buisnesses are startng to shift and need to get with the paradigm
Yeah but I will say there must be somebody when new workers don’t know what to do in like the store or the place cannot move on until they solve the problem I got a cash register and you’re stuck with 20 customers and left there alone and you really don’t know what to do you can’t just shut the door down and it must be somebody to call or talk to you and I mean the one that’s on the clock that’s new they need to leave people there working alongside of them until they got it but I’ve always ran into problems even starting a new jobs where something on the register you just don’t know how to do and everybody’s yelling at you and you weren’t taught something and isn’t that a point of a manager that is in the job title on call
I think it is a good proposal and hope it passes as the workplace shouldn’t be allowed to call you after hours . If work needs to be discussed then it should only happen when the employee is at work for the next work day. What people do outside work with family and friends is on the individuals time. Legally, employees at least 24 hours away from work for personal time. This would help out greatly.
Unless it is a life or death situation, working “9 to 5” is just that. If they want employees to respond after hours, they better get paid for it. And not just 5 minutes extra on their timesheet, either. Whether it takes 5 minutes or not, there should be an extra hour (or more) tacked on to their pay. Better yet, pay the employee without taking taxes out of their pay. And if you are an employee who is a workaholic, well, I guess you like working for free.
I would vote for it. I would like to know more about it and what the exact exceptions are. There are times when an employer has to contact an off the clock employee where it would be to their benefit. I worked for a convenience superstore that has stores all up and down the east coast. If someone called out sick the manager on duty would go down a list of employees to call to offer the hours to. I always made sure my name was on that list because as a part to er I would get 10 or less scheduled hours. Would this bill have an exception so that the employer can offer extra hours to struggling employees. But it would have to be only to offer hours not to harrass the employee into working on one of their few nights off.
Requiring employees to connect to work off the clock is royally stupid and represents a complete lack of respect for others personal lives. It only makes sense if the employees are paid and are on call duty. It also makes sense if the employee has a direct stake in the business. Otherwise, it incurs no motivation, other than fear to attend, and a resentment at the company. Not good business.
Does anyone know if this would include businesses though they may be headquarted in another state but employ people in MI (several states) as well?
Thanks!