What general protection for teleworkers and home office?

At European level, several EU instruments can be taken into account for teleworking and home office, in particular the Working Time Directive, the Work-life Balance Directive, the Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions Directive and the European Framework Directive on Safety and Health at Work, in addition to the European Social Partners' Framework agreements on telework (2002) and on Digitisation (2020). Each country in Europe can choose how to regulate -or not to regulate- telework, with different instruments, from “hard” law to “soft” law: state regulations, collective agreements or simple guidelines.

Some examples include:

In Romania, according to the law adopted in 2020, workers’ representatives have access to the telework place for verifying the work conditions of teleworkers[1]. The same law also provides the labour inspectors with the competence to carry out controls at workplaces in workers’ residences in order to check if labour legislation is respected and the work environment meets the occupational safety and health requirements. However, the actual implemented of this law still needs to be assessed.

In Italy, article 18 of law 81 of 22 May 2017 defines “smart work” as the "mode of execution of the employment relationship, established by agreement between the parties, also with forms of organisation by phases, cycles and objectives and without precise constraints of time or place of work, with the possible use of technological tools for carrying out the work activity. The work is performed partly inside company premises and, without a fixed location, partly outside, within the limits of the maximum duration of daily and weekly working hours deriving from the law and collective bargaining". Article 19 of the same law provides that “in the agreement between employer and worker on smart working, the worker's rest times must be identified as well as the technical and organisational measures necessary to ensure the disconnection of the worker from the technological work tools”.

In countries where no regulations on telework, the latter is often included in general labour regulations such as:

In Denmark, all workers are subject to the Danish Working Environment Act, which also applies to teleworking from home. The Act contains rule such as the physical arrangement of the workstation and screen work, periods of rest and rest days also apply on remote work and specific requirements for telework were introduced during the pandemic, stating that “it is the employer's duty to ensure that homework can be carried out in a completely safe and healthy manner”[2].

In Germany, the Workplace Ordinance (Arbeitsstättenverordnung) includes minimum requirements in terms of health and safety of employees such as the lighting and temperature, computer monitors and laptops. In principle the employer is obliged to provide the work equipment, including all materials. However, this is not always reflected in reality, at least not in the media sector (see below, part 2). The Working Hours Act (Arbeitszeitgesetz) also applies to teleworking, with regulations on maximum working hours and rest periods.

In Finland, as reported by the Finnish union of journalists, some telework agreements have had disputes about health and safety for teleworkers. For example, one large media company’s agreement had a clause stating that ”an employee is liable for his/her own safety and health when teleworking”. The clause was contested as wrong and illegal because the employers’ general duty is to take care of the health and safety of their employees under the general rules of the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which also applies to telework. Any further agreement reducing the rights of and benefits due to employees in this field are null and void.

[1] See https://www.etui.org/covid-social-impact/romania/romania-law-on-teleworking-approved [2] https://at.dk/spoergsmaal-svar/c/covid-19/hjemmearbejde/krav-hjemmearbejde/

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