Debate: The right to disconnect
Date: WEDNESDAY, 20 JANUARY 2021
Speaker: Nicolas Schmit
Language: EN

In the last few years we have witnessed a sustained growth in telework and an accelerated adoption of ICTs for work purposes. With the lockdowns due to the COVID-19 crisis, this gained much more prominence, and it will likely remain a permanent feature in the work organisation. Digitalisation has created, indeed, new businesses, new opportunities, new ways of working, living and consuming. It has led to productivity increases, to more flexibility for workers and businesses, and in the context of the pandemic, allowed many workers and many companies just to continue their activities. So if there is, on one hand, an important advance by the digitalisation of the European economy, we have also to have a very, very keen look at the upholding of working conditions and labour law. The new economy cannot develop outside the normal framework of labour law, including also working time. This is not just a social dimension; it’s also an economic one, so we have really to maintain a balance between the development of digitalisation on the one hand, with the extremely important tools we all have in our hands, and on the other hand, the rules, the framework, the laws which protect people, because we want a people-centred development of digitalisation. This report identifies some of the key challenges that new technologies pose, indeed, to the world of work. Addressing these challenges is all the more important in view of the effects of the COVID-19 crisis, because this has accelerated a lot of these processes. In Europe we can pride ourselves on a strong set of social and labour laws which already touch upon some of the challenges raised by this report. We have the Working Time Directive, the Occupational Safety and Health Framework Directive, the Work-life Balance Directive and the Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Directive, to mention the ones which are relevant for remote working and have a direct impact on the ability of the worker to disconnect from work obligations. These laws protect the well-being of European workers and put forward safeguards, amongst other things, against excessive working hours and unpredictable work schedules, including for the ICT-based work. We need to explore how best to seize the opportunities and address the challenges posed by digitalisation of the world of work, taking into account national industry and sectoral specificities, as the rapporteur has also mentioned. In this regard, the high-level conference on the future of work, remote work, challenges, risks and opportunities, planned by the Portuguese Presidency, comes very timely. Implementing a right to disconnect is often a matter of finding the right balance between the nature of the tasks, management style, personal choices and company-level rules. Certainly a one-size-fits-all approach is therefore not ideal, but this doesn’t diminish the importance of a right. Then you have to implement the right according to the different situations, and certainly this can be best done through social dialogue. As rightly set out in your report, social partners have a central role in dealing with issues linked to this right to disconnect. Social partners should take a leading role in this regard, and the Commission stands ready to assist, ready to encourage. But this means that we have to be all  In the last few years, some Member States have taken action by directly or indirectly mandating social partners to negotiate provisions on the right to disconnect. Italy, Spain, France, Belgium are among those countries. And in the past, social partners have already agreed on a cross-industry framework agreement on telework, in 2002 – so quite a long time ago, when telework was starting. Now telework is extending, and close to 30% and sometimes even more people are on telework. It would perhaps be important to have a look at this agreement and to adapt it to the present context and circumstances. Social partners have also come together to agree on a more recent agreement on digitalisation, concluded in 2020. This framework agreement specifically tackles telework and modalities of connecting and disconnecting from work, and it is currently being implemented at national, regional and local level. In this specific field it is equally important to duly take into account the concerns on proportionality, subsidiarity and better law-making principles. All proposals for Union action – and this is absolutely fundamental and applies also to the right to disconnect and eventually action in this field – must be subject, under Article 154 of the Treaty, to consultation with the EU’s social partners, who may decide to act by means of agreements, to act by negotiation between themselves. So anyway, this door is open – wide open. Before deciding on any action on the right to disconnect, the Commission certainly has to apply this Article and will also discuss with social partners on these aspects. As a certain number of Member States, as I recalled already, have already introduced a right to disconnect, many companies also establish this important right through agreements with their social partners, because they have understood what the rapporteur has described: people are not robots, people have limits. So, if you want to have better productivity, you cannot just occupy people 24 hours a day and seven days a week. So I think this is an important contribution, economic and social again, and this shows the importance of this right to disconnect for the good functioning of companies. And very often, by the way, it’s IT companies who have introduced this right to disconnect. It underlines also the crucial role of social partners in this field. Therefore, the Commission is inviting social partners to proactively work together in order to come to an adequate solution for the benefit of workers and companies. Certainly the Commission is ready to accompany and support them in this endeavour, and then the right of the Treaty – also of Article 225 – is absolutely there and can be used by the Commission if needed.