Going Beyond the Right to Disconnect in a Flexible World: Light and Shadows in the Portuguese Reform
研究了信息通信技术如何模糊工作与个人生活的界限，分析了葡萄牙改革中离线权的利弊，对劳动法学者和政策制定者有参考价值。
The rapid development of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has revolutionised employment relationships, particularly in relation to working time. Working time regulations have long contributed to setting boundaries between work time and personal/leisure time with one of the aims being to safeguard workers’ health.1 It is not a coincidence that the very first Convention adopted in 1919 by the International Labour Organization (ILO) aimed to limit working hours.2 The importance of the physical workplace as the main criterion to determine what constitutes working time and rest time, however, seems to have diminished in recent years. ICT and mobile technologies have contributed to the ‘dematerialisation’ of the office. Thus, workers, or at least some of them, can perform their tasks anywhere, anytime.3 ICT can certainly enhance both employers’ and workers’ autonomy. This may result in improved productivity, reduced stress, and curtailed commuting time, all of which allow workers to better reconcile their personal and professional lives. However, there are also risks in the deficient use of ICT and mobile devices, such as psychological exhaustion, lack of solidarity, and impoverishment of the collective dimension of work. These technologies can also contribute to blurring the boundaries between personal and professional life, affecting workers’ (mental) health, and contributing to work exploitation.4 Furthermore, ICT increases the employer’s power over workers in two respects: first, instant communication means that the former can contact the latter anytime, including outside of working hours; second, employers can increasingly monitor their employees’ work performance, which may encroach upon worker privacy.5