Giving workers a ‘right to switch off’ could backfire

Millions of workers are ‘never quite switching off’ and are answering emails out of hours, warns Autonomy, a think tank. It suggests that the 1996 Employment Rights Act should be amended to give employees a legal ‘right to disconnect’.

Unfortunately for Autonomy, Labour’s new deal for workers, outlined last month, somewhat stole its thunder. Spearheaded by deputy leader Angela Rayner, the party’s radical package of labour market reforms includes a default right to flexible working, new worker status for those in the gig economy and, of course, a French-style law barring employers from contacting workers outside strictly regulated hours.

Nonetheless, Autonomy’s suggestion has received fawning coverage. The Guardian headline referring to the piece suggested that Covid has ushered in an overtime ‘epidemic’ – a word deployed so exhaustively in this crisis that it’s virtually devoid of meaning. The word actually means ‘a sudden outbreak of infectious disease that spreads rapidly through the population, affecting a large proportion of people’.