Beyond Our BordersBrazil Requires Employers to Pay Overtime for Use of Smartphones after Work Hours

Workers in the United States are increasingly arguing that they should receive overtime pay for the time they spend staying connected to work through their iPads, smartphones, or other electronic devices. Indeed, many employers require their employees to carry a mobile device to keep in contact.

Checking e-mail, responding to text messages, tweeting, and using LinkedIn or other employment-related apps can be considered work. If employees who are not exempt under the overtime regulations are required to use mobile devices after office hours, the workers may have a valid claim to overtime wages. The FLSA is not clear about what constitutes work, however, so workers have difficulty showing they are entitled to overtime wages.

In Brazil, though, workers who answer work e-mails on their smartphones or other electronic devices after work are entitled to receive overtime wages. E-mail from an employer is considered the equivalent of orders given directly to an employee, so it constitutes work. A few other nations also require payment to workers for staying connected through smartphones and other devices after hours. France has even gone one step further and banned employers from sending e-mail and other electronic communications to their employees' smartphones and tablets after 6:00 p.m.

Question:

What are the pros and cons of paying overtime wages to workers who check e-mail and perform other work-related tasks electronically after hours?