Our View: No need to legislate for teleworking

Legal regulation of telework was a priority of the House labour committee, said chairman Andreas Kafkalias. Discussion of the bill began last June and will continue at the first meeting of the committee in early September, when the House reconvenes, Kafkalias told Phileleftheros, with the aim of forwarding it to the plenum by the end of that month. First, however, there had to be consultations between the labour ministry and the Commissioner for the Protection of Personal Data as there were some gaps in the bills regarding privacy.

The bill will only apply to the private sector. Although there had been an agreement in principle between public sector unions and the government regarding work from home, more consultations will be needed. The government is in no hurry as the introduction of flexible employment practices, which it undertook as part of the resilience and recovery plan, does not have to take place before the end of 2024. Aware that in the public sector work from home is very likely to reduce the already low productivity, the government is intent on delaying its introduction for as long as possible.

There is a suspicion that the parties and the labour ministry have decided to regulate telework in the private sector as a concession to the unions. It is an unnecessary interference in the operation of private businesses which have the right to decide arrangements for work from home according to their specific requirements. Not all businesses operate in the same way, so how could there be a uniform law for all of them? Surely, each business has the right to set its own rules regarding work from home in consultation with its workers and does not need to be subjected to the inflexibility of rules set by politicians and unions.

Many businesses already have work from home rules in place and are not waiting for the legislature to pass a law, which makes telework voluntary – there has to be an agreement between employer and employee. Also, a person applying for a job could make working from a home a condition of their employment, in which case both parties would know where they stand.

In the bill being discussed at the legislature there is a provision that would allow telework to be imposed for health reasons. It is one of those provisions that is open to exploitation, which is why employer organisations have expressed objections. It raises the possibility of someone taking a job on the condition of working in an office and then demanding to be put on telework for ‘health reasons.’ This is why a provision making telework compulsory for ‘health reasons’ is a very bad idea. If it is included in the bill for the public sector (which it will be if it is in the private sector law) it will almost certainly be abused in the same way as sick leave is abused.

Deputies should consider these factors when resuming discussion of the bill. Ideally the bill should be shelved because telework is working fine without legislation.