Dáil debates Bill to give employees ‘right to switch off’ from online work

Current law on remote working is "ludicrous in the extreme" where an employer is effectively required to inspect employees' homes to ensure they are suitable for working from home, according to Labour leader Alan Kelly.

Calling on the Government to bring legislation into the 21st century, Mr Kelly said a change in law is long overdue.

Citing existing law which obliges an employer to check workers’ homes as a “complete dog’s dinner”, he said it was unacceptable, unenforceable and wrong.

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic which saw the numbers of remote workers more than treble from 200,000 early in the year to 700,000 currently, Mr Kelly said this “must represent the single greatest change in working life in a single year in Irish history”.

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Ireland is the only EU country with no protections for online working he said as he introduced legislation to give all workers “the right to switch off” and to provide employees with suitable equipment and payment for the costs of working from home.

Pressurised

Mr Kelly said people can be pressurised into working very long hours and to answer messages late into the night, particularly for very junior workers. “This always on culture can have very negative impact on physical and mental health and home life,” he said, adding that surveys had shown that almost half or 49.3 per cent of employees were now working more than their contracted hours.

The Working from Home (Covid-19) Bill requires employers to inform employees of their policy on out of hours communications and protects employees from punishment for failing to respond to communications. France, Italy, Spain and Belgium have implemented such legislation, he said.

The Bill also requires an employer to pay employees for suitable work equipment and pay them for the costs of working from home including extra utility costs such as electricity, home heating and broadband.

Labour enterprise spokesman Aodhán Ó Ríordáin said the potential for employers to exploit workers is extremely high and “we cannot have a situation where the only way a person can live their life effectively and earn a salary is to never stop working”.

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar acknowledged that what might have happened in 10 or 15 years in the move to remote or home working, "happened in a matter of days" because of the pandemic.

Rigid

The Government will not oppose the legislation and wants “remote working and blended working to become part of the norm, based primarily on choice”.

But he said provisions of the Labour Bill were “quite rigid” and could diminish employees’ rights in some cases and create inequality between private and public sector workers.

Flexibility was important and it would be meaningless to systematically switch off after 7pm if an employee works for an international company that needs to communicate across different time zones or where an employee wants to stop working between 4 pm and 7pm to take care of children and then switch on after 7pm.

Mr Varadkar also said the Government’s strategy on remote working will be published before the end of the year including proposals on a network of digital hubs and provisions for tax and expense arrangements.

He said the strategy would also include a right to request to work remotely and to have this considered properly fairly.

Mr Varadkar said there would also be proposals on the “right to disconnect” for workers and supports for businesses “to make the digital transition”.

The Tánaiste said the existing legislation governing working time was also being examined to consider any deficiencies in relation to the right of workers to disconnect from their jobs.

He said he had asked the Workplace Relations Commission to examine a potential new code of practice or guidelines for employers and employees on existing requirements and entitlements in this area.

He said “any changes in this area need to strike a balance and be based on consultations between employers and employees”.

Last week Mr Varadkar told the Dail in response to questions from Louise O’Reilly of Sinn Féin that although there was nothing in legislation that prevented an employee requesting the right to work remotely, he believed “legislation was needed”.

“I intend to initiate a discussion on the concept of a right to request remote working with the Labour Employer Economic Forum,” he said.

Labour parliamentary party chairman Sean Sherlock said the Bill provided for flexibility to be built in for individuals in the workplace.

The party wanted to ensure workers do not have a “dystopian future”. He said “we’ve seen evidence of employers monitoring workers at home through the use of applications like TimeDoctor, Activtrak, Teramind, and StaffCop.”

He said these applications are “being applied to workers working at home at all hours of day and night”.