wl-3283-Overwork Culture, Karoshi, and the Right to Disconnect

In the context of the recent incident of a young chartered accountant succumbing to work pressure, this article discusses the intensifying overwork culture clouding the white-collar jobs in India’s corporate sector and new economy. It cautions that the prevailing situation is akin to Karoshi, a unique occupational hazard and social phenomenon reported in Japan since 1980s. After providing a focused discussion on the contemporary context of prolonged working hours, overwork culture and mounting work-related pressures, eventually it is argued that this is an appropriate time to revisit and revive the much-needed legislation on `right to disconnect’, in the line of the aborted bill of 2018. The need for widening the perspective of right to disconnect by adding the concerns of workers’ `freedom to dissociate’ from all sorts of intensive monitoring at workplace is also highlighted. While working towards promoting the right to disconnect, due attention needs to be paid to the implications of newly emerging forms of work organisation and the resultant work-intensification and employee-vulnerabilities Essentially, it is maintained that that it is crucial to uphold and protect the norms of fair working hours and to curb unhealthy workplace practices that lead to job-dissatisfaction among corporate employees.