A report from the think tank Autonomy states that unpaid labour time is a growing problem in the United Kingdom. In 2018, over 5 million UK workers put in a total of 2 billion unpaid hours. Modern workplaces and homes are digital spaces. The fact that we are able to send and receive messages, emails, and online content twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week means that it is increasingly hard to disconnect, enjoy our leisure time and develop a healthy work-life balance.
This has created an epidemic of ‘hidden overtime’, where workers never quite ‘switch off’ and continue to do bits of work throughout the evening and weekend.
The report proposed draft legislation to implement a ‘right to disconnect’ based on French law, which ensures respect for employee rest periods and allows them to ignore work calls and emails during their time off.
The report suggested this should function as an opt-out legal requirement, with a specific standard that applies to all firms and sectors, adding that employers that wish to opt-out should be the “exception”, with the burden of proof falling on them to demonstrate why they should contact workers outside of their contracted hours.
It said that an employer “shall not require a worker employed by him to monitor or respond to any work-related communications, or to carry out any work, outside of the worker’s agreed working hours” and there should be no detriment or consequence of a worker refusing to monitor work communications out of hours.
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