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PHOTO: European Union, 2020
Due to COVID-19, many employees work from home, Brussels wants to regulate when they are available
Twenty years ago, it was impossible to contact an employee outside of their working hours, especially on weekends. Today the call is not observed a decent time, business conversations by email and chat are carried out 24 hours a day, and many employers consider phone calls after work, on weekends or during vacations normal. In some companies and entire countries, “being on call” is becoming the new norm.
Remote working is expected to become even more common in the future. That is why there is talk in the EU of the “right to disconnect”: the worker can disconnect from the network when working from home, and refrain from participating in electronic communications related to work, such as emails and other messages during non-working hours and holidays.
In its legislative initiative adopted last week, the European Parliament called for the adoption of a new trade union law that gives workers the right to turn off their digital work devices without facing negative consequences. The new law should also set minimum requirements for working from home and clarify working conditions, hours of work and rest periods. “We cannot give up the millions of European workers who are
exhausted from
pressure to be
Always online
and too long working hours. Now is the time to stand behind them and give them what they deserve – the right to separate from the work environment. This is vital for our physical and mental health. It is time for workers’ rights to be modernized to cope with the new realities of the digital age, “said rapporteur Alex Saliba (S&D, Malta) after the EP vote.
The response of the European Commission, which has the exclusive power of legislative initiative, is awaited. In her political directives, the President of the EC, Ursula von der Leyen, commits to “respond to each legislative initiative of the EP with a legislative act …”
Working from home has played an important role in preserving jobs and businesses during the COVID-19 crisis. However, the combination of long work hours and increased demands also leads to more cases of anxiety, depression, burnout, and other physical and mental health problems.
In his report on the subject, MEP Alex Saliba pointed out a number of health risks associated with work overload. Using digital tools for long periods of time can lead to decreased concentration, as well as cognitive and emotional overload, technological dependence, lack of sleep, anxiety and exhaustion. Monotonous repetitive manipulations and static posture for long periods of time can lead to muscle strain and musculoskeletal disorders.
For a healthy and safe work organization
the EU level standard is 8 hours
per day, 40 hours per week
and 11 hours of rest
For each period of seven days, the worker is entitled to a minimum period of uninterrupted rest of 24 hours plus a period of daily rest of 11 hours.
Several EU countries have already taken positive steps to regulate the use of digital communication. France is considered a pioneer in the EU in the legal recognition of the right to “exclude” from work. As early as 2013, a national cross-sector agreement defined periods in which employee electronic devices could remain switched off. In 2016, this right became law and is now regulated by the French Labor Code. Electronic business contacts outside of business hours are considered overtime, whether for business phone calls or answering emails.
German employers have also made significant progress in regulating work outside of working hours without adopting specific legislation. Companies like Volkswagen, BMW and Puma have voluntarily placed restrictions on when managers can email employees outside of business hours. The automaker, for example, is
set your interior
servers to not send emails
between 18:15 and 7:00
The German Ministry of Labor sets the example by prohibiting all communication with staff outside working hours, except in emergencies.
However, at the EU level, no legislation currently exists or is proposed to directly regulate the synchronization of work-related electronic communications. The Working Time Directive defines as such “any period during which an employee works is available to the employer and carries out his activities or obligations”. According to the Court of Justice, the waiting time of a homeworker who is obliged to answer the employer’s calls within a short period of time must also be considered “working time”. All that remains is for this to be regulated by European law.
Only 0.5% of Bulgarians worked from home in 2019.
Only 5.4% of employees aged 15 to 64 in the EU worked from home in 2019, according to Eurostat data. This proportion remains constant at around 5% in the 2009-2019 period.
The proportion of home-based workers “sometimes” increases gradually: from 6% in 2009 to 9% in 2019. The Netherlands and Finland top the list for teleworking, with 14.1% of employees typically working in an office at home in 2019 d. Followed by employees in Luxembourg (11.6%) and Austria (9.9%). The lowest proportion of home-based workers is recorded in Bulgaria (0.5%), Romania (0.8%) and Hungary (1.2%).
In 2020, the coronavirus crisis forced many companies and public and private organizations to switch to teleworking, which was a jump in their participation. According to the online survey “Life, work and COVID-19”, carried out in April 2020 by the agency “Eurofound”, 37% of those surveyed started working from home during the confinement. This increase is significantly higher in those countries that already have a large proportion of teleworking. The number of Europeans who work exclusively from home varies considerably from one Member State to another, from around 1/5 in Croatia, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Hungary to more than 40% in France, Spain, Italy, Ireland and more than 50% in Belgium. . Similarly, the proportion of employees who work primarily in their employers’ offices varies considerably, from less than 1/4 in Belgium and Spain to more than half of the employees in the survey in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia. .
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