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Plaid MP demands French-style after-hours contact safeguard

Plaid Cymru MP Jonathan Edwards called yesterday for a French-style ban on bosses contacting workers after hours. 

Trade unions and employers federations in France have agreed that staff  should not reply to emails or calls after leaving work in order to preserve the country’s 35-hour working week. 

Sending emails outside office hours is allowed only in “exceptional circumstances” under the so-called digital working time rules. 

Mr Edwards argued that the mass of emails and phone calls taken at home is burning staff out by adding three to four hours on every working week. 

He said: “Since the advent of the digital age — smartphones, iPads and so on — the relationship between work and recreation time has radically altered and the division between both increasingly blurred.

“The inbox can literally be taken home.”

Mr Edwards has suggested Britain could follow France’s lead, challenging Tory PM David Cameron to prove his much-parroted catchphrase that he’s “on the side of hardworking people.” 

Failing to act will only store up health and social consequences, he warned. 

He said: “People have to be able to switch off from their work responsibilities. 

“Burn-out, stress, depression and oher mental illnesses are inevitable consequence unless individuals are able to control their work-life balance.

“And children in particular can also suffer if they do not have full interaction with their parents who might be preoccupied dealing with work emails.”

Mr Edwards is set to put down an early day motion in Parliament calling on the government to start negotiations between trade unions and employers on the issue.

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