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The issue of the right of employees to be inaccessible was also discussed by the Lithuanian authorities on Tuesday. However, at the meeting of the Tripartite Council, composed of representatives of employees, employers and the Government, the prevailing opinion was that this right is necessary for employees, but that it should not yet be included in the Labor Code (DK) . Not all agreed.
It does not propose to change the Labor Code
Vita Baliukevičienė, Head of the Labor Law Division of the Ministry of Social Security and Labor (MoSD), clarified at the Council meeting that in 2019. In the European Union (EU), 5% worked remotely and 37% during quarantine. workers.
“Therefore, the European Parliament has decided to guarantee the right of employees to disconnect from the media and not suffer any consequences,” explains V. Baliukevičienė.
According to her, according to data from the company Spinter tyrimai, in Lithuania 40% work remotely during quarantine. population. Nearly a quarter of them in the survey said they faced interference after work.
Inga Ruginienė, president of the Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation, says she sees a problem, but is not currently proposing to change the legislation.
“Will that inclusion in DK really give me the right to log out? Well, I really don’t think so.
My proposal is an information campaign in companies. Work ends – all employees in the work system receive notifications that work time has ended and that the person can participate in their activities for the rest of the day ”, I. Ruginienė gives the decision.
“It goes without saying that at the end of the workday, the workday must end. Although the focus is now on the pandemic, this problem predates the pandemic. But it must be understood that disturbing an employee during unemployment is a clear overtime regulated by the DK ”, comments I. Ruginienė.
I want clarity
It is true that representatives of some unions argue that regulating the right to be inaccessible after work is simply necessary because, especially during quarantine, work has become abnormal.
“Everyone says that the teacher’s work has become completely abnormal: students call and write at night about additional assignments. After work, you also have to work on creating additional teaching materials.
The issue is sensitive and should be regulated, perhaps through collective agreements ”, suggests Rūta Andriuškevičienė, director of the Sandrauga teachers union.
Rimtautas Ramanauskas, president of the Lithuanian Solidarumas Energy Union, also proposes to regulate the right of withdrawal at the collective bargaining level, when the employer and the company’s employees agree on work, remuneration and other socio-economic conditions.
“These things should be agreed upon in collective bargaining, what if our disconnection hurt other people? If there is a need for an employee at the time, natural disasters, extreme weather conditions? If a firefighter is unavailable and his colleague gets sick and the fire station does not go to the fire station, how then? ”R. Ramanauskas asked.
However, the president of the Lithuanian union Sandrauga Kęstutis Juknis points out that the right of inaccessibility of an employee was proposed by an EU institution, so its necessity should not be questioned.
“You see, the conclusions were given by the EP, not a group. The EP says to protect workers from harassment by tasks and letters during unemployment. And we are pulling the other way:” DK is a sacred cow and we will not move it. ” , K. Juknis objects.
According to K. Juknis, there are not many collective agreements in Lithuania, so a regulation at that level would not help.
“If we include it in the collective agreement, we will do it more, more and we will stay in line with this. That right provides a general basis for work: you must not interfere with a person who is resting from work, ”adds K. Juknis.
It is also supported by the Deputy Minister of Social Security and Labor, Vytautas Šilinskas. According to him, regulating the right of the employee to be inaccessible to DK is a very good way, but it is not necessary to change it yet.
“It is only necessary to understand that this right does not apply to on-call duties of emergency services and, in general, guard duties are paid accordingly,” explains V. Šilinskas.
Evaluated differently
In December, Inga Rugienė, president of the Lithuanian Trade Union Confederation, told the tv3.lt news portal that the mere fact that such an initiative appeared on the table of the European Parliament shows that the problem is relevant and relevant not only for Europe but also to Lithuania.
“Because of this, we also have a rather serious situation in Lithuania: a lot of people go to telework, but they don’t know how to combine the rhythm of work and rest. We had a lot of stress in the spring, although a large part of the population still did not use teleworking.
At that time, more and more positions are connected to teleworking, and at least for now it seems that yes, well, we predict that some positions will not return to the offices, they will continue to work remotely ”, I. Ruginienė named the essential observations.
However, the president of the Employers ‘Confederation, Danukas Arlauskas, was skeptical about the registration of such a law – according to the employers’ representative, regulating such matters in the EP is an area that should not be regulated by them – it should be decided at the national level.
“I think these things would go well and on their own. I don’t think that employers in Lithuania are slaves or puppies who are arrogant and disrespectful towards an employee. So I don’t think it’s appropriate to cut everything at once.
(…) Suppose that when there is an accident in a company, someone dies or dies and everyone is disconnected. There are still criteria of prudence: no employer will call at night to say “don’t forget to come to work tomorrow.” This, well, it seems to me that this is going to cause problems ”, said D. Arlauskas to the news portal tv3.lt in December of last year.
The issue of workers’ right to leave outside working hours has become particularly acute in the face of a global pandemic, when the number of people working from home has risen to around a third of the total workforce in Europe. More and more of them begin to face the same problem: the disappearance of the boundary between work and rest.
The Tripartite Council recalls that the European Parliament (EP) is convinced that workers have the right to leave after working hours, as well as during holidays or rest days, to refrain from direct or indirect work activities outside working hours and Maintain communications related to work by digital means.
According to the EP Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, interfering with an employee’s break time can be treated not only as a phone call, an email, but also as a short message, all of which can disrupt the leisure time of quality of an employee.
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