A new bill moving through the Michigan Legislature would put real limits on after-hours contact between employers and their workers — and if it passes, Michigan could become one of the first US states to formally enshrine something workers in France and Australia already enjoy: the legal right to switch off.
- Michigan Senate Bill 948 would ban employers from requiring after-hours contact outside an employee’s assigned working hours.
- Workers could negotiate compensation or set personal availability windows to handle after-hours contact on their own terms.
- Violations would be reported to Michigan’s Department of Labor, with fines or overtime pay as possible penalties.
- The bill reflects a broader global push for ‘right to disconnect’ laws already enacted in Europe and Australia.
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What the Workplace Employee Boundaries Act Actually Says
Senate Bill 948, introduced by Senator Erika Geiss (D-Taylor) and referred to the Labor Committee, targets a very specific and very modern problem. After-hours contact — the late-night Slack ping, the Sunday morning email about Monday’s rota, the 10 p.m. text asking for a quick turnaround on a report — has become so normalized in American work culture that many employees don’t even question it anymore. This bill would force that conversation into the open.
Under the proposed law, employers generally couldn’t require workers to access or respond to work-related communications outside their assigned hours. That covers emails, text messages, and social media messages — essentially the full spectrum of channels companies use to reach staff. Scheduling future shifts falls under the restriction too, which is particularly significant for hourly workers in retail, hospitality, and healthcare, where last-minute schedule changes are routine.
When introducing the bill, Geiss didn’t mince words.
‘In an increasingly ‘always-on, always available’ economy, we must take action to protect workers and create stronger boundaries. Too many workers are expected to be constantly available, answering emails, messages, and calls long after their workday ends. That pressure erodes well-being, undermines family life, and disproportionately impacts working parents and caregivers. It is a matter of fairness, dignity, and basic respect.’
That framing matters. Geiss isn’t positioning this as anti-business legislation — she’s positioning it as a fairness issue. And that’s a smart move, because it’s harder to argue against dignity and basic respect than it is to argue against, say, a wage increase.
The Exceptions Built Into the Bill
The legislation isn’t a blanket communication blackout, and the carve-outs reveal a lot of the thinking behind it. Employers and employees can negotiate after-hours contact arrangements directly into a contract — including compensation for on-call availability. Workers can also voluntarily set their own hours of availability, during which they’re reachable for work matters. And communications tied to genuine state or federal emergencies that affect business operations remain permitted.
These exceptions are sensible. They acknowledge that some industries — emergency services contractors, infrastructure operators, healthcare facilities — genuinely need flexible availability arrangements. What the bill targets isn’t legitimate operational need; it’s the cultural expectation that every employee is perpetually on call, for free, simply because they own a smartphone.
That distinction is worth sitting with for a moment. The bill doesn’t prevent a company from reaching an employee in an emergency. It prevents a company from demanding that workers remain in a state of perpetual readiness without acknowledgment, compensation, or consent.
After-Hours Contact and the Right to Disconnect: A Global Context
Michigan isn’t operating in a vacuum here. Australia introduced right-to-disconnect legislation in 2024, giving workers the ability to refuse unreasonable contact outside working hours without facing penalties. France has had a version of this law since 2017, requiring companies with more than 50 employees to negotiate policies on after-hours contact. Belgium, Portugal, and Spain have introduced similar rules at various levels of formality.
In the United States, progress has been slower. New York City explored a right-to-disconnect ordinance for private-sector employees in 2018, though it didn’t ultimately become law. California has long led on worker protections in the US, but even there, no specific statute addresses after-hours contact comprehensively. Michigan’s bill is part of a growing wave of state-level interest in the topic — and the political timing is notable. Remote and hybrid work, accelerated dramatically by the pandemic, permanently blurred the line between work hours and personal time for millions of Americans.
The data backs up the concern. Surveys consistently show that a significant proportion of remote workers log hours well beyond their official schedules, and that the always-available expectation is a leading driver of burnout. When the office is always three steps away — or always in your pocket — it takes deliberate policy, not personal willpower, to maintain boundaries.
Enforcement and What Violations Would Actually Mean
A law without teeth isn’t much of a law, and the bill’s drafters appear to have thought about this. Workers who believe their employer violated the rules could file a complaint with Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity. The potential consequences include fines against the company and, in some cases, overtime pay owed to the employee — which creates a direct financial incentive for employers to take compliance seriously.
There are real administrative costs to building out this enforcement mechanism. The Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity would need to develop training materials, establish complaint-processing procedures, and presumably field an uptick in filings once the law takes effect. The bill analysis acknowledged these costs directly, which suggests the legislation was drafted with at least some attention to practical implementation rather than just political messaging.
Still, enforcement of labor law in the US is notoriously uneven. Wage theft, for example, is technically illegal everywhere — yet it remains one of the most widespread labor violations in the country, often going unreported because workers fear retaliation. Any after-hours contact law would need robust anti-retaliation provisions and accessible complaint channels to be meaningfully effective, not just symbolically on the books.
What This Means for Michigan Employers
For businesses operating in Michigan, the immediate reaction might be concern about operational flexibility. But the more considered response is probably to start thinking about what structured availability policies would actually look like — because whether this specific bill passes or not, the direction of travel is clear.
Companies that proactively establish clear after-hours contact norms tend to see better retention, higher morale, and — counterintuitively — stronger productivity during working hours. When employees know they won’t be pinged at midnight, they’re more likely to actually disconnect, recharge, and show up the next day genuinely focused. The always-available culture often produces the illusion of productivity rather than its substance.
Tech companies, in particular, have a complicated relationship with this issue. Silicon Valley’s hustle culture lionized the 80-hour week for decades. But even within the industry, sentiment is shifting. Burnout among software engineers, product managers, and data teams is well-documented, and the talent market has forced more companies to take work-life balance seriously as a recruitment and retention tool — not just an HR talking point.
Senate Bill 948 is still in committee, and its path to becoming law is far from guaranteed. Michigan’s Legislature has passed more conservative labor policy in recent years, and business lobby groups are likely to push back. But Geiss has framed this in terms that are hard to argue against in public: fairness, dignity, and the right not to have your personal time colonized by your employer’s communication preferences. That framing could carry real political weight — and even if this particular bill stalls, it’s adding momentum to a conversation that’s already well underway across the developed world.
Source: Hacker News
Frequently Asked Questions
What types of after-hours contact would Michigan’s bill restrict?
The bill would prohibit employers from requiring workers to access or respond to emails, text messages, or social media messages about job duties or shift scheduling outside their assigned hours. Emergency communications tied to state or federal emergencies affecting business operations would still be permitted.
Are there exceptions that allow after-hours contact under the bill?
Yes. Employees could agree in their contracts to be compensated for on-call availability, or they could voluntarily set their own hours of availability. Messages related to genuine state or federal emergencies affecting business operations are also explicitly allowed under the proposed law.
What penalties could employers face for violating the Workplace Employee Boundaries Act?
Employers who breach the rules could face fines levied by Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, and in some cases may owe overtime pay to the affected employee. Workers would file complaints directly with that department.
Has any other country or US state already passed a right-to-disconnect law?
The source does not address whether other countries or US states have passed right-to-disconnect laws. Michigan’s bill is part of a broader conversation about protecting workers from always-on work culture expectations.
