The right to disconnect or a corporate obligation of remote disconnection? Legislative challenges from a work perspective

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Montse Sole-Truyols
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1127-933X

This article is based on the idea that work in a digital environment does not modify the nature of the work relationship. From this perspective, it argues some of the reasons why flexibility cannot be considered an inherent characteristic of work with ICT devices. Insofar as that the right to disconnect aims to guarantee workers’ breaks without renouncing flexibility alters the correlation of rights and duties pertaining to the work contract and constitutes an inefficient measure in terms of the objective of rest.


Based on the idea that legislation around disconnection must maintain the foundations of the working relationship, the article uses a potential obligation of remote disconnection on the part of the employer as a case study for identifying the most significant challenges to which the law must respond. The idea is to advance in those relevant aspects in order for them to be useful for future measures.

Keywords
right to disconnect, work relationship, working day, digital work

Article Details

How to Cite
Sole-Truyols, Montse. “The right to disconnect or a corporate obligation of remote disconnection? Legislative challenges from a work perspective”. IDP. Internet, Law and Politics E-Journal, no. 36, doi:10.7238/idp.v0i36.397055.
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(c) Montse Sole-Truyols, 2022


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Author Biography

Montse Sole-Truyols, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Associate professor of Law and Political Science Studies at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Degree in Catalonian Philology (2009) and Law (2011) from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Her research interests are focused on labour law compared particularly with that of Nordic countries, where she has undertaken several research stays in Norway and Sweden. Within this field, her main line of research is currently based on digital work and the analysis of legislative changes derived from new technologies. She is the author of various publications in Catalan and English, in various formats: book chapters and teaching manuals, all published by Thomson Reuters Aranzadi, as well as articles in scientific magazines. She has participated as a speaker in international conferences specializing in labour law, the most recent of which include: The individualisation of collective representation. Norway, Portugal and Spain alternatives of digital workers’ representation, presented at the International Conference organized by ADAPT in Bergamo (Italy) in November 2021, and Working time regulation in the Digital Environment: A fundamental must to avoid modern slavery, presented at the 19th ILERA World Congress, in Lund (Sweden) in June 2021.

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