Law of 6 May 2021, no. 61 converting Decree Law no. 30/2020 recognised that remote workers have the right to disconnect from technological equipment and IT platforms, under any agreements signed by the parties and without prejudice to any agreed periods of availability. The exercise of the right to disconnect, which is necessary to protect the worker’s rest time and health, cannot affect the employment relationship or pay. The law establishing remote working (L. no. 81/2017) requires that the individual agreement between employer and employee must identify “the technical and organisational measures necessary to ensure the worker’s disconnection from technological work equipment.” The law establishes a worker’s right to disconnection, which is necessary to protect the worker’s rest and health and it must necessarily be regulated in the individual agreement. The legislator seems to comply with the Resolution of the European Parliament of last January. The European Commission was invited to draw up a Directive, to which the Member States will have to adapt, that guarantees remote and non-smart workers the right to disconnection.
Other related insights:
Elena Cannone (Senior Associate and Compliance Focus Team Leader – De Luca & Partners) and Andrea Di Nino (Employment Consultant – HR Capital) will participate as guest speakers in “HR: TIME TO CHANGE” organised by the Italian-Germanic Chamber of Commerce next 27 May.
Thursday 27 May 2021
Videoconference event
(from 4 to 6.30 pm)
The year 2020 was marked by the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced companies to reorganise the way they work. In this situation, remote working helped counter the spread of the virus in the workplace.
What will happen after the pandemic? Will remote working go from being an exception to becoming the norm? What are the challenges facing companies and their management? What are the advantages of remote working?
These are some of the topics that Elena Cannone and Andrea Di Nino will discuss during the event.
Click here to consult the programme and receive further details.
Monday 8 March, starting at 12:00 live on Class CNBC (Sky channel 507) and on www.milanofinanza.it appointment with #Ripartitalia, the agenda for the future of work. Vittorio De Luca will be one of the guests, moderated by Andrea Cabrini, to talk about new rules for work.
The pandemic crisis has radically transformed the dynamics and processes of the job market, requiring adoption of new organisational models.
Vittorio De Luca, depicts a picture of the shortcomings and necessities of the current normative framework in terms of new forms of “liquid” work.
What normative interventions can ensure the right flexibility and productivity for companies to compete in the post-pandemic market? What protections should be guaranteed for those workers impacted by the process of change? What solutions are adopted abroad?
Click here to follow the interview.
The interview for the economic and social observatory Riparte Italia.
Many experts in the field doubted its legitimacy due to the open contrast between the ban with the constitutional right to free enterprise; doubts that were unquestionably fuelled by continuous extensions of the ban which, initially introduced for 3 months, has now been in effect for more than a year. Assessment of its legitimacy depends on the weight of the various interests and values at play, all constitutionally related: on one hand the right to health (individual and collective) and work, and on the other that of free enterprise. Critical signs on the observance of restrictions have started to emerge in legal systems similar to ours.
For example, in Spain, with an emergency normative framework similar to ours, the Court of Barcelona removed the ban on dismissals and ruled a dismissal for economic reasons legitimate, considering the ban in conflict with both the constitutional framework and with EU law, which protects freedom of enterprise as one of the fundamental rights of the EU.
Returning to us, additional extensions of the ban on dismissals in Italy, which seem certain, should reduce their range of action in the future, finally coming to grips with the various opposing interests, loosening the reins in favour of a return (at least partly) to forms of flexibility for human resource management by enterprises.
Clearly, additional extensions of the ban would only risk postponing a problem which sooner or later must inevitably be dealt with, considering that the continuing pandemic emergency has resulted, for all intents and purposes, in the worst economic crisis since the postwar period, destined to have far-reaching, widespread effects in coming years.
The interview for the economic and social observatory Riparte Italia.
Many experts in the field doubted its legitimacy due to the open contrast between the ban with the constitutional right to free enterprise; doubts that were unquestionably fuelled by continuous extensions of the ban which, initially introduced for 3 months, has now been in effect for more than a year. Assessment of its legitimacy depends on the weight of the various interests and values at play, all constitutionally related: on one hand the right to health (individual and collective) and work, and on the other that of free enterprise. Critical signs on the observance of restrictions have started to emerge in legal systems similar to ours.
For example, in Spain, with an emergency normative framework similar to ours, the Court of Barcelona removed the ban on dismissals and ruled a dismissal for economic reasons legitimate, considering the ban in conflict with both the constitutional framework and with EU law, which protects freedom of enterprise as one of the fundamental rights of the EU.
Returning to us, additional extensions of the ban on dismissals in Italy, which seem certain, should reduce their range of action in the future, finally coming to grips with the various opposing interests, loosening the reins in favour of a return (at least partly) to forms of flexibility for human resource management by enterprises.
Clearly, additional extensions of the ban would only risk postponing a problem which sooner or later must inevitably be dealt with, considering that the continuing pandemic emergency has resulted, for all intents and purposes, in the worst economic crisis since the postwar period, destined to have far-reaching, widespread effects in coming years.
If the ban is not extended the companies which to date have been forced to maintain their employment levels will certainly take the actions they have put off, in many cases still connected to redundancy unrelated to the health emergency and possibly before it. This will inevitably lead to a resumption of dismissal-related litigation that had remained dormant for a year at this point. Vice versa, an extension on the ban on dismissals would have to include renewal of the emergency social safety nets currently in place, with a connected further worsening of related government spending.
If the ban is not extended the companies which to date have been forced to maintain their employment levels will certainly take the actions they have put off, in many cases still connected to redundancy unrelated to the health emergency and possibly before it. This will inevitably lead to a resumption of dismissal-related litigation that had remained dormant for a year at this point. Vice versa, an extension on the ban on dismissals would have to include renewal of the emergency social safety nets currently in place, with a connected further worsening of related government spending.
Read more here.
Under the Law No. 81 of 22 May 2017 on “Measures for the protection of non-entrepreneurial self-employment and measures aimed to facilitate flexibility in regard to locations and times of subordinate work”, remote working has been recently regulated in the Italian legal regime for the first time. This is a flexible style of working, regulated within the employment relationship and characterised by the absence of time- and workplace constraints and by forms of organisation of work by stages, cycles and objectives.
When implementing remote working in their company, employers must take personal data protection regulations into account.
Regulation (EU) 2016/679 on the protection of personal data (the “GDPR”) introduced the principle of accountability, namely the requirement for the data controller (in our case the employer) to take proactive steps to show that concrete measures have been put in place to ensure the implementation of this Regulation. Essentially, the employer is obliged to identify and manage risks associated with the data processing carried out, in accordance with the principle of data protection “by design” (involving the protection of specific data processing operations) and “by default”.
This means that, in the case of remote working, the employer must carry out a proper risk assessment and, where necessary, an impact assessment in order to analyse all existing and potential risks and identify the technical and organisational data security measures that are required in order to guarantee secure data protection operations. The employer, accordingly, must adopt Regulations, Policies or Guidelines which set out the conduct that smart workers must adopt in order to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of data processed in the course of their duties.
The employer must also ascertain and verify that remote controls are not invasive in nature, in contravention of Article 4 of Law 300/1970. This means that the systems that allow continuous monitoring of employees’ use of work tools and the company network must be subject to detailed scrutiny.
For this very reason, remote workers must receive detailed information on the various ways in which the employer exercises its power of control, and on what forms of conduct could potentially trigger or attract disciplinary sanctions.
Beyond this, the employer must train remote workers so that they are fully cognisant of and familiar with the tools available to them, the various risks, and the measures to be adopted while remote working.
