Draft legislation providing for employees’ right to inaccessibility

A proposal to amend the Netherlands Working Conditions Act and the Placement of Personnel by Intermediaries Act of the Netherlands has just been published. The proposed change concerns the introduction of a “right to inaccessibility”. The upsurge of smartphones and tablets has rendered employees accessible on a ‘round-the-clock basis and has resulted in employees feeling pressured outside office hours to respond to work-related messages. According to the initiator of the draft legislation a “licence to uninterrupted leisure time” should accrue to everyone, as an indispensable right enabling the relief – or, better still, the prevention – of complaints of a stress and burn-out related nature.

The Bill accompanied by the Explanatory Memorandum has been posted, for your information and comment, to internetconsultatie.nl (dutch link).

Dutch version: Wetsvoorstel recht op onbereikbaarheid werknemers