2023-08-26 08:32:19
Digitization is, without a doubt, a great opportunity for the competitiveness of companies and, on a personal level, to improve communication between the members of a certain group, be it family, friendship, shared hobbies or within a company or organization or a certain professional activity. But like any technological paradigm shift, these opportunities are accompanied by risks that are often not obvious and often go unnoticed amid the fascination with the advantages that these advances offer us.
Like every summer, the debate on the right to digital disconnection returns. A still poorly regulated vice that, towed by our social habits, is growing and is becoming a great threat in professional environments. And not only in sectors such as the self-employed and liberal professionals, traditionally the least protected against malpractice in terms of labor rights, but also, and increasingly, in sectors dominated by large companies, where the consolidation of the rights of workers and workers is engraved on fire in collective agreements, effective tools but which, for the most part, go behind reality to fulfill their mission in the face of new trends such as the one that is the subject of this article.
It is very important to know what is at stake when we talk about (not) digital disconnection. Vacation and rest periods are not a whim, if they were recognized in the most advanced countries in terms of labor rights, apart from decades of union struggle, it is because their need in terms of well-being and health was scientifically demonstrated. Any worker, whatever his activity, needs to respect his periods of rest and physical recovery and, in a very special way, psychological. I say very special, because the psychological tends to go more unnoticed than the physical. In short, what in colloquial language we usually call ‘disconnect’, one of the most used verbs when we enjoy our vacations.
As a result of this, how can we normalize that companies consent to call or send instant messages (Whatsapp or others) or e-mails to their workers who are on vacation or outside of their working hours? It seems unbelievable that there are still organizations that consider that “it is a moment” or that “answering a message does not hurt.” You have to look up to understand that we are talking about mental health, workers need to know that during a certain time -and agreed with the company- nobody is going to bother them. That is what “disconnection” is about, which we could also call “regeneration”, because that is the collective good that it pursues.
Fortunately, there are more and more companies that, thanks to union demands, create protocols to avoid these malpractices. Protocols that, by the way, obey a legal framework that is increasingly clear in this regard, as demonstrated by the proliferation of jurisprudence that agrees with workers who do not answer calls and messages after hours. But there is still a long way to go, and beyond continuing to outline legal frameworks and agreements to protect these rights that often go unnoticed, it is important to promote ethical attitudes in this regard. That is to say, that every time someone makes the decision to bother a colleague who is on vacation a little lightly, they should bear in mind the socio-labour impact of what they are going to do: a culture of rejection of these behaviors must be established precisely by doing pedagogy what it entails in terms of rights.
Only in this way will we be able to stop a trend that threatens to become a pandemic at a time when the permanent availability and addictions to screens are facilitating the consolidation of these new abuses against which we must be very vigilant. From the Workers Union (STR) we are clear that we must continue to put this matter on the table and that its vigilance be a constant in the negotiation agendas with companies from all sectors. We must not allow these new technologies to represent steps backwards in the achievement of better levels of well-being and mental health in the workplace.
Jordi Margalef
Secretary of Communication of the Workers Union (STR)
1693097852
#wellbeing #occupational #health #stake