In a statement to the European Commission, CESI noted that, overall, a right to disconnect and teleworking can help balance work and caregiving responsibilities and lead to greater inclusion in the labour markets – when properly designed and promoted.

In particular, CESI stressed that:

• EU action is needed on both telework and the right to disconnect in order to set boundaries and minimum standards across the EU for all Member States. EU action should enable/facilitate collective bargaining for the construction and implementation of ad-hoc policies which take into consideration different work organisations within sectors and companies/administrations as employers. It should respect the principle of social partner autonomy.
• Special attention should be paid to the scope of the right to disconnect. In principle a right to disconnect should be the target solution for workers. Workers should generally have the ability to log off after working hours, but also have the freedom to remain available if they wish so in order to be able to better manage domestic responsibilities. However, depending on the case, an imposed disconnection can be preferable compared to a more self-determined right to disconnect. A right to disconnect does leave more flexibility and self-management to workers, but it also requires strong self-control competences: Through snowball effects it can also entail an intrinsic pressure to be available: As soon as a worker makes himself/herself visibly available during non-office hours, other colleagues may feel pressured to follow suit, despite having a right to disconnect. This is especially true for workers that aspire a wage rise or promotion or fear adverse behaviour by the management if they switch off. In such cases, an imposed disconnection of all workers can be more effective that an increased flexibility that a (mere) right to disconnect can mean to workers. An EU measure should only set rough guidelines for this and enable/facilitate the possibility of a right to be disconnected but leave decisions to social partners at sectoral and company level.
• A right to disconnect should not be an absolute right. There may be special circumstances that make it necessary to be on-call anyway. This is true most notably for management personnel, where a relatively high degree of reachability may naturally be necessary.

CESI Secretary General Klaus Heeger said: “The Covid pandemic has seen a wide spread of home office and telework. Ongoing discussions on how to render telework fair and beneficial for both workers and employers show that regulation of the matter is not yet satisfactory, but in high need. This is especially true for debates around a new right to disconnect – or even furthergoing measures for forced disconnection during times beyond office office. As CESI, we think telework should be fair, and workers should have a right to disconnect. This is vital for their reconciliation with domestic resonsibilities, it is important for their mental health in the long term, and thus it is important for their employability over time too. It is also a matter of fairness. Previously, employers rarely had the means to contact personnel and make it work on-site after office hours. So why should this change in the era of telework?”

He added: “The important aspect is that workers should have an effective right to disconnect. Details will need to be further discussed – in particular which aspects of fair telework and a right to disconnect should be regulated at the EU level and which issues should be left to the Member States and social partners and sectoral and company level. We want common minimum standards in the EU that can ensure quality telework and an effective right to disconnect for workers, but we need to be careful to not overregulate to the detriment of lower regulatory levels and potentially a breach of social partner autonomy. This must of course be avoided. ”

CESI’s full consultation statement can be accessed here.