Smartworking, or agile work, was decisive in the first phase of the pandemic to contain infections and allow the continuation of work activities. The emergency gave an abrupt push to what was an announced revolution: thanks to digital devices it is in fact possible to carry out many of the office jobs from home, guaranteeing many advantages to workers, who avoid the time and costs associated with traveling home. -office. Even after the acute phase of the pandemic, smartworking remained widely in use in our country, so much so that in May 2021 there were still 5.4 million remote workers, over 7 million if the self-employed are also taken into consideration. But if staying at home is on the one hand judged “comfortable”, on the other it can lead to the complete union of private and working life.
The risk is to no longer have a start and an end time of the working day and to become available 24 hours a day. In Italy, agile work is governed by law 22 of 2017, which provides for an individual agreement between the worker and employer who identifies the measures necessary to ensure disconnection. Recently, in the conversion law of Decree Law 30 of 2021, a rule was introduced that recognizes the worker the right to disconnect from technological equipment and IT platforms, in compliance with the provisions of the individual agreements, in which periods of availability.
At the European level, however, there are no univocal indications that dictate a line on the rules to be applied in the various states. The result is a varied variation of the right to disconnect within the European Union. A research conducted by Toffoletto De Luca Tamajo, a law firm specializing in labor and trade union law consultancy for companies, carried out in collaboration with Ius Laboris, an international association of labor law specialists, took stock of the situation, analyzing the various national regulations. “The countries that have regulated the right to disconnect are still exceptions and most have done so in the last twelve months,” comments the lawyer Aldo Bottini, partner of Toffoletto De Luca Tamajo. “A differentiated scenario has therefore been created, waiting for the European Commission to accept the European Parliament’s invitation to present a proposal for a Union directive so that the Member States guarantee certain elements common to all”.
Among the various situations, there are countries that have enacted specific laws, including France. Here, companies with at least 50 employees must negotiate union agreements that provide for the right of workers to disconnect from devices outside working hours and, in the absence of a pact, must issue a policy. In Belgium, on the other hand, the law identifies technology as a stress risk factor and the employer must take this into account when assessing the risks associated with the professional activity and then adopt counter measures, including disconnection. The Irish government, on the other hand, published in the first months of 2021 a “Code of practice” on the right to disconnect outside normal working hours; the code is part of the «Strategy for remote work» and for employers it will involve greater attention in recording time in areas where this practice is not common, particularly in remote work. No specific law in Germany and Spain, where however disconnection is generally regulated by collective agreements or included in company policies.
Wanting to classify countries precisely, analyzing Eurofound data on the rules related to agile work, four categories in particular can be identified: Italy, Spain, France and Belgium adopt a balanced approach between the regulation of smart working and a legislation on disconnection; The Czech Republic, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal have rules that “promote” agile work but do not take into account the risk of “always-on”; Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Croatia, Hungary, Luxembourg, Malta, Holland, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia apply remote work legislation with general rules, with no mention of disconnection; UK, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Latvia and Sweden have no specific rules on agile work.