In an apparent attempt to keep its workers from feeling tied to their BlackBerry handsets when there are off-duty, Volkswagen (VW) has worked out an agreement under which the post-work BlackBerry use of the unionized workers at company's German sites will be throttled.

According to the Wolfsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, which was the first to report the notable development, the move initiated by VW is also aimed at sending across a message to the bosses that expecting the workers to be accessible even at night is a rather unreasonable idea.

With the after-hours BlackBerry email ban which VW has worked out with the labor representatives at its German site placing firm restrictions on when work emails can be received by the VW staff through their Blackberrys, the Allgemeine Zeitung report has said that the agreement will affect as many as 1,154 non-managerial staff of the automaker.

The agreement to throttle the off-duty BlackBerry use will seemingly not apply to the VW employees outside of Germany.

However, despite the fact that the new email rules are essentially applicable only to the VW's German site proletariat, and not the company's executives, it is being assumed that the executive staff of the company too will be compensated accordingly.

In addition, the off-duty BlackBerry email ban will also be exempted for those VW employees who are responsible for ensuring the round the clock functioning of the automaker's systems.