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Right to Disconnect

Minister for Business, Enterprise, and Innovation, Heather Humphreys TD

We're calling for new legislation to be introduced that would give workers the right to 'switch off' once their working day is over. It's called the 'right to disconnect' and it means that workers would not be obliged to answer calls, reply to emails or engage in work-related activities outside of paid working hours.

If you're tired of being 'always on' and would like to see legislation on the right to disconnect, please join the call by signing the petition today.

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Financial Services Union

To: Minister for Business, Enterprise, and Innovation, Heather Humphreys TD
From: [Your Name]

As Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation you recently supported the Financial Services Union call for workers' ‘right to disconnect’. We welcome your support and we appreciate that you have established a review which will in part consider this topic.

In order to feed into your review, we are asking you, and the Government, to introduce/support positive legislation mandating all employments to introduce a ‘right to disconnect’ workplace policy through engagement with their trade unions/worker representatives. The policy should provide for the following:

1. Commitment from senior management to minimise out of hours contact
2. An on-call/standby allowance for any worker expected to keep phone or device on
3. Overtime payment for any work then done
4. Protection for employees who invoke their right to disconnect from any victimisation or negative repercussion
5. A mechanism to deal with complaints of breach of policy, allowing for referral to WRC

We feel that legislation like this will provide scope for businesses to introduce, through engagement with workers, policies incorporating the most appropriate details and specifics to their business or sector but will still provide robust protection for workers that should minimise and prevent work-related stress and its associate physical and mental problems.

We look forward to engaging with you further on this important matter.