France was the first country in the world to introduce a proper legal framework protecting a person’s “right to disconnect”. It all started back in 2001 when the French Supreme Court ruled that no employee is under obligation to bring the office work at home and with time as the technology developed the Court continued to modernize its ruling.
On 1st January 2017, France introduced the El Khomri law i.e. a kind of revised Labor code, Article 55 of the code mandates that the companies with more than 50 workers must have a negotiation of obligations with the employees and guarantee them the “the right to disconnect” or ignore the phone calls outside the office hours. The law is reasonably vague and doesn’t restrict after-hours work communication, but rather obliges organizations to negotiate these terms clearly with prospective employees.
In Spain, each and every company regardless of the number of employees, have the “right to disconnect” policies. The culture of “Right to disconnect” is crawling all over the world and New York in such case is no longer behind. It is also contemplating over a bill similar to “Right to disconnect” bill. The bill not only limits to ‘Out of Work Hours’ but also to the vacations.
Germany is another country that has been struggling with these questions for several years that how to reduce work-related stress and strive for a better work-life balance. The Employment Minister of Germany Mr. Andrea Nahles, came up with a research in 2017 revealing some serious facts that workers tend to retire early because of constantly in stress and has been calling for “anti-stress” laws similar to “Right to Disconnect” since 2014.
Many of the Companies in Germany have hopped ahead of the phase, thinking that it might be good for overall work culture to self-regulate some of these matters. Among many companies, Volkswagen was first to institute a rule in company to freeze all emails related to work during no-working hours. For this the company make such arrangements that there internal servers never route an email to individual accounts.
According to Indian perspective the biggest impediment in implementation of the Right to Disconnect Bill 2018, is our developing economy, we are not among the developed countries we are still struggling to get in line, so the work attitude in India is quite competitive in every factor either it is production or top/bottom line performances. Being a developing country, India still depends on global market. This makes it difficult to have a uniform work policy across all sectors.
Another backdrop of the “Right to Disconnect” Bill is the employers would not be able to keep a track on the important works as work emails at home are usually reminders of an important deadline or guideline that needs to be kept track of. One cannot simply ignore the duties bestowed upon him and for a matter of fact there are certainly some professions like doctors, Fireman, technical support, security staff who needs to be on duty 24 *7 * 365 any moment and ‘Right to Disconnect” is a kind of hurdle in between.
Q.1. Mr. X is a citizen of France and is working in a company named ABC, which employees 90 people. At the time of recruitment of Mr. X. the CEO of the ABC company asked MR. X, if there is any problem if the company calls him after office hours, to which Mr. X, replied there is no such problem. This was also mentioned in his employment contract. Mr. X was called by the company at 10 pm in the night for about two weeks in a row. Can Mr. X take any action against ABC under the labour code?
a. Yes, since the labour code prohibits work after office hours.
b. No, since the labour code does not talk about after office works.
c. Yes, since it is the violation of the employee’s privacy.
d. No, since it was already negotiated at the time of hiring the employee.
Answer: d.
Q.2. In the above facts, if the company ABC is a Spanish Company with 10 employees, would it change your answer?
a. Yes, in Spain the employees have the right to disconnect.
b. No, since the number of employees in the Spanish company is less.
c. Yes, but only of the number of employees is more than 50.
d. None of the above.
Answer: a
Q.3. What is the biggest reason for India not being able to implement such a policy?
a. Being a developing country, India does not respect privacy of the employees.
b. Being a developing country, India is very poor to afford such policies.
c. Being a developing country, India has a very competitive market, which is still dependent on the global market.
d. All of the above.
Answer: c
Q.4. Which of the following cannot be attributed to the passage?
a. One of the backdrops of the Right to Disconnect is that the professions like doctors, firemen, security staff etc. have to be working at any moment and it will be a hurdle in the work.
b. Right to Disconnect is a part of fundamental rights in many European countries.
c. Right to Disconnect was first started by French Supreme Court, when it ruled that no employee is under obligation to bring the office work at home.
d. Employment minister of Germany came up with the data that the employees retire very early due to the work related stress.
Answer: b
Q.5. Mr. X is a French citizen, who has small start-up which caters the designing needs of the people in the France. As most of the work is online, the team Mr X employs is not very big and is limited to 45 people. Mr. X fired one of the employee because he did not take Mr. X’s call at 2pm at night, which caused Mr. X a loss of big amount. The other employees fearing this incident, demanded the right to disconnect from Mr. X. Can they do it?
a. No, since in France, the employer has any obligation only when the number of employees is more than 50.
b. Yes, since the Supreme Court of France has recognized Right to disconnect.
c. No, Mr. X is a gentleman and fired the employee because he lost money.
d. No, since France is not as developed as Germany.
Answer: a
