A Renewed Effort to Limit Burnout Hits City Hall
Thousands of city employees may soon find themselves under much less strain after clocking out for the day.
City lawmakers are renewing efforts to curb telepressure, the impulse to respond quickly to work messages, with a sweeping bill that aims to end the days of agency employees answering work calls, texts and emails after shifts. While so-called “right to disconnect” laws have gained global traction in recent years, New York could become the first American city to pass such legislation after years of stalled efforts.
“What we’re trying to do is have a conversation of where do we build those boundaries,” said Council Member Carmen De La Rosa, chair of the City Council’s Civil Service and Labor Committee. “How do we ensure that our workforce is productive, but also healthy, to try and carry out as much of their duties as possible.”
De La Rosa is one of six Democratic co-sponsors of the bill, which will be reintroduced at a Sept. 26 City Hall meeting titled “The Future of Municipal Work.” If passed, the bill could lead to policies similar to those in workplaces across Europe, including giving employees the right to ignore inquiries from managers after work hours, and imposing fines against bosses for violating workers’ off hours.
Norberto Luna, a business agent for the New York City Housing Authority, said he’s often witnessed pressure to answer off-work emails and calls. Luna added that workers like him whose shifts end before the standard 5 p.m. oftentimes accept telepressure as “part of their job.”
“It’s getting people to understand that, this is your time, you’re not getting paid, you shouldn’t be answering your phone, you shouldn’t be answering your emails,” Luna said.
De La Rosa and other proponents of the bill said they hope fostering a stronger work-life balance will attract more people to municipal work in an era of higher burnout since the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There’s no magic bullet to solve the greater problem of workplace flexibility,” said former Brooklyn City Council Member Rafael Espinal, who co-sponsored a 2017 version of the bill. “But this definitely will create that cultural shift, giving workers the protection they need to take the time off without the fear of retaliation.”
If passed, the bill would give each city agency 90 days to draw up its new policies. Each agency would then have to submit its guidelines to Mayor Eric Adams.
But in interviews, experts said the bill’s vague parameters, which mirror the 2017 version, leave the door open for varied results across departments.
Specifically, the bill does not detail the amount of involvement that agency workers at various levels would have in writing these guidelines. Keri Stephens, a professor of organizational communication technology at University of Texas at Austin, said that could lead to the law unintentionally strengthening the “imbalance of power” across agencies.
“Employees need to be actively involved in writing those policies,” Stephens said. “If it’s just someone at a higher level who dictates a policy, chances are it’s not going to take into account the needs of people, especially entry-level workers in an organization.”
Some municipal workers, including Jenny Blackwell, who works as a curator at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, said those negotiations would be especially important for employees who are not represented by a union.
“The unions are actually really good about saying, ‘you work from this hour to that hour, and that’s it’,” said Blackwell. “I feel like everybody should have that opportunity.”
Lacie Barber, an associate psychology professor at San Diego State University, said a must for any telepressure bill also includes language allowing for availability expectations to be “repeatedly updated and discussed.” She added that widening the regulations beyond just phones and emails is critical.
The bill does not include any language about updating policies once they are agreed on, and it also does not specify the regulation of apps such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams that have become popular in the age of remote work.
It’s unclear whether this new effort will prove successful, but supporters like Espinal, who now heads the Freelancers Union, remain optimistic.
“It will definitely be a huge stepping stone,” he said. “And I think the next obvious conversation is creating workplace flexibility for these workers, looking at creating sustainable and concrete work from home options.”
