Guaranteeing the employee's right not to be available outside working hours. This is the aim of the bill on the right to disconnect presented yesterday to the Chamber by a group of deputies of the Democratic Party. “Work, then posting” is the name of the text signed first by Arturo Scotto and supported by the president of the chamber Anna Ascani which, if approved, would include Italy in the list of large European countries where there is a clear demarcation between work and free time. Specifically, the proposed law establishes the “right not to receive communications from the employer or from personnel assigned to managerial tasks towards the worker outside the normal working hours provided for by the contract applied and, in any case, for a minimum period of twelve hours. from the end of the work shift”.
How the right to disconnect works in the Democratic Party bill
This does not mean that such communications cannot be sent, but that the employee can ignore them, or not receive them at all, for example by logging out of their accounts or turning off the digital devices they work with, without these actions having any consequences for them. Furthermore, even if it remains possible to send messages to workers, they will only be able to leave outside of office hours if an explicitly justified emergency justifies it. In this case, the employee would not be required to read them before the start of their shift. Finally, in the event that the emergency causes the employee who read the communications to work outside of normal hours, the provisions relating to overtime must be applied.
The right to disconnect in Italy
The right to disconnect is not completely ignored in Italian legislation. In fact, Law 81/2017 provides that the “technical and organizational measures necessary to ensure the disconnection of the worker from technological work tools” are taken into account in employment contracts and agreements. Furthermore, Law 61/2021, approved after the pandemic, at a time when remote work was at the height of its popularity, establishes that “the worker who carries out the activity in agile mode has the right to disconnect from technological instruments and IT platforms, in compliance with any agreements signed by the parties and without prejudice to any agreed periods of availability”. With the pandemic behind us, the proposal created in collaboration with the collective intends to go further by extending this right to all workers and without delegating its enjoyment to subsequent agreements.
The right to disconnect in the European Union
Within the European Union, several countries have already moved in this direction, indicated as those to follow also by the European Parliament with a resolution of 2021. The first, as reported The FigaroIt was France in 2016 with the Labor Lawwhich requires companies with at least 50 employees to guarantee the right to disconnect for employees. In Spain, a 2018 law had similar effects. In Portugal, managers cannot send emails and messages outside working hours. In Ireland, a code of conduct was published in 2021 which stresses that messages outside working hours are not prohibited, but should not become the norm. Furthermore, in Belgium, the right to disconnect is guaranteed from 2022 to all 65,000 employees of the public administration.
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