The right to disconnect in French law. Effectiveness of the right to rest in the digital age
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-2695/7570Keywords:
Droit à la déconnexion, Loi travail, réglementation du temps de travail, négociation collective, pouvoir unilatéral de l’employeurAbstract
The use of digital tools in the employment relationship blurs the boundaries between work time and personal time. In 2002, an Author theorized the “right to disconnect” as the right “to private life of the 21st century”. The same right has just been recognized by Loi Travail.
This legislative provision, however, does not give a definition of the right to disconnect. It refers to company-level collective bargaining (concerning the quality of life at work )or, failing this, to the employer decisions for what concern the rules regarding disconnession. It’s worth distinguishing two aspects: the right to disconnect at work (to solve the problems arising from hyper-connection) and the right to disconnect from work (to guarantee rest periods, leave and personal life).
By considering rest periods and personal life, the law establishes the right to disconnect from work and by incorporating this right into the matter of quality of life at work, it establishes as well disconnection at work. The main question is whether the legislative framework is able to reach both these goals.
The article highlights some issues concerning especially disconnection from work. The A. discusses the adequacy of the legislative framework, considering that the discipline of disconnection, included in collective bargaining on professional equality and quality of life at work, ends up being not enough co-ordinated with time and workload regulation.
References
BIDET A. - PORTA J., Le travail à l’épreuve du numérique, Revue de droit du travail, 2016, p 328;
BOURGEOIS M.B. - TOURANCHET L. - ALAS-LUQUETAS X., Le droit à la déconnexion, La Semaine Juridique, Édition Sociale, 2017, n. 24, 1199, p. 1;
FAVENNEC-HÉRY F., Qualité de vie au travail et temps de travail, Droit social, 2015, p. 113;
GRATTON L., Révolution numérique et négociation collective, Droit social, 2016, p. 1050;
IZARD S., Le droit de se connecter en toute liberté!, Semaine Sociale Lamy, 2017, n° 1755;
LOISEAU G., La déconnexion. Observations sur la régulation du travail dans le nouvel espace-temps des entreprises connectées, Droit social, 2017, p. 463;
MATHIEUC. - PÉRETIÉ M.M. - PICAULT A., Le droit à la déconnexion, une chimère?, Revue de droit du travail, 2016, p. 592;
PONTIF V., «Transformation numérique et vie au travail»: les pistes du rapport Mettling, Revue de droit du travail, 2016, p. 185 ;
RAY J.E., Naissance et avis de décès du droit à la déconnexion : le droit à la vie privée du XXIème siècle, Droit social, 2002, p. 939 ;
RAY J.E., Actualité des TIC – Tous connectés, tout le temps ?, Droit social, 2015, p. 516 ;
RAY J.E., Grande accélération et droit à la déconnexion, Droit social, 2016, p. 912 ;
RAY J.E., Droit à la déconnexion : un nouveau thème de négociation décrypté par J.-E. Ray, Liaisons sociales quotidien, 1er décembre 2016, p. 1.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2017 Laetitia Morel
The copyrights and publishing rights of all the texts on this journal belong to the respective authors without restrictions.
This journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (full legal code).
See also our Open Access Policy.
Metadata
All the metadata of the published material is released in the public domain and may be used by anyone free of charge. This includes references.
Metadata — including references — may be re-used in any medium without prior permission for both not-for-profit and for-profit purposes. We kindly ask users to provide a link to the original metadata record.
