On 21 January 2021, the European Parliament adopted a resolution inviting the European Commission to suggest a Directive guaranteeing workers the right to disconnect from the information technology tools used to carry out their work.

The Parliament attached to the Resolution specific recommendations outlining the Directive’s content. The Directive should be addressed to private or public workers regardless of the working method and employment sector.

The draft Directive defines the right to disconnect, as the “right of workers not to engage in work-related tasks or communications outside working hours by means of digital media, such as phone calls, emails or other messages.”

The draft Directive requires Member States to ensure that employers take the necessary measures to provide workers with the means to exercise their right to disconnect, reiterating the need to establish an “objective, reliable and accessible” system for measuring daily working time.

The draft Directive within two years of its entry into force, Member States should adopt and publish the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to implement it, and apply them within three years.

In the context of remote working, the technical and organizational measures necessary to ensure the disconnection of the worker from technological work equipment must be identified. The tools used by the remote worker to perform his or her work activity allow a constant and continuous availability and connection, not only potential but in fact, constant and continuous. Vittorio De Luca and Elena Cannone discuss this right and its implications in terms of employer responsibility for Agendadigitale.eu.

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