Overview
- The draft law would give employees the legal right to ignore work calls and emails outside agreed hours without facing disciplinary action.
- It proposes an Employees' Welfare Authority to conduct a baseline study on after-hours digital use, oversee implementation, and direct firms with more than 10 employees to negotiate out-of-hours rules with workers or unions.
- Employees who agree to work beyond set hours would be entitled to overtime at the normal wage rate under the bill's terms.
- Non-compliant employers could face a penalty equal to 1% of the total remuneration paid to their employees.
- The proposal includes counselling services and digital detox centres, and it arrives alongside related private members' efforts such as Shashi Tharoor's amendment on work hours and Kerala's earlier state-level initiative, even as such bills rarely become law.