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Comment by ineptech | Hacker News Reader

The article uses "text" and "call" and "contact" as if they're indistinguishable - what actually got banned here? There's a huge difference between discussing a task for someone in a team channel and @-ing them and emailing them and SMSing them.

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Mandatory "Portuguese here". All forms of communication are banned. Unless it's an emergency, and this is where it gets a bit grey because they haven't defined what exactly is an emergency, so things will probably stay the same in most cases.

Thanks! That sure sounds overbroad - would it include, say, "Can y'all take a look at the XYZ server tomorrow" being posted in a team's slack channel? Also, is it just limited to the supervisor, or is it any work-related messages?

The specifics aren't yet known, they only approved the generality of the law. But the news only mentions employers, so it doesn't seem like it will include co-workers. Also your example would be considered an infraction.

Another reason why it won't mean much is that the employee is the one that needs to make a complain with the work authority, and then work authority has to evaluate the case and decide it they will issue a fine or not.

So what this really means is that if my boss contacts me after work hours I can (and should) ignore him without any repercussions.

Ahhh thank you this makes a lot more sense - the law doesn't need to define "contact" very closely, if there is a review board that decides whether to fine, rather than an automatic fine.

If the law does exclude that, then slack does have a scheduled message function. I use that feature rather than disturbing people out of hours. On a weekend I don't want to be thinking about work, so I apply the same courtesy to others.

"This is an emegency. I can't print."

I tried to answer my own question, but can't find any specifics. CNN says "phone, message or email", AP says "contact", thehill says "email". None of them have a link to more details or the text of the law (which ought to be the bare fucking minimum in a news article about a law, but this is the internet now I guess).

It's probably just an issue with trying to translate the original source. But the law uses the term "contact", so AP is correct.

Thank you, I guess I just naively assumed the law would be more specific or would define the term more narrowly; but I suppose the courts will do that.

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