Ensure everyone has the right to disconnect
The Covid-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed the way we work. Now, more than one in three European workers are working from home. The pressure to be always ‘on’, always reachable, is growing as the boundaries between private life and work life are increasingly becoming blurred. Working from home makes it particularly difficult to switch off. Studies show that people who regularly work from home are twice as likely to work more than the maximum 48 hours per week limit laid down in EU law. The human cost is high: from unpaid overtime, to muscular and eye strain, to depression and burnout. We cannot abandon the millions of European workers who keep going and do their jobs under the extremely difficult circumstances of the pandemic, but who are exhausted by the pressure to be always 'on' and the extended working hours. Now is the moment to stand by their sides and give them what they deserve: the right to disconnect.
One of the biggest challenges to workers’ rights today is digitalisation, which is turning our societies and economies upside down. We want to make sure that digital tools are used as an asset benefitting employers and workers, while the negative effects are mitigated. Workers must be able to switch off their phone or emails after working hours or while on holidays.. The right to disconnect allows workers to switch off from work-related tasks, activities and electronic communications (such as phone calls, emails and other messages) outside their working time, including during rest periods, official and annual holidays, maternity, paternity and parental leave, and other types of leave, without facing any adverse consequences.