Home office rules in Portugal: no contact with the boss after work
Created: 01/01/2022, 09:44 AM
From: Bettina Menzel
Working from the home office: In Portugal, since 1.1.
new rules © Eugenio Marongiu / Westend61 / Imago
If the boss contacts his employees after work, this can cost up to 10,000 euros in Portugal from January 1st.
Lisbon - In November, the Portuguese Parliament passed a new home office rule: Supervisors are only allowed to contact their employees in the event of force majeure, even after work.
If, for example, there was an accident in the company, a server or system crash would be conceivable, the boss can ask employees for help after work.
A short text message or a call without good reason after work, however, can result in fines of around 10,000 euros from January 1, as the Portuguese newspaper
Jornal de Notícias
reported.
Portugal: Right to work from home adopted
Portugal approached the corona crisis a little differently than Germany. Since February 2021, the vaccination campaign has been in the hands of a military man instead of a politician. That created trust in the population. There were also differences in communication. The Portuguese government gave people long-term prospects whenever possible. For example, weeks ago she stipulated that work from home is recommended from December and is compulsory between January 2nd and January 9th. A “lockdown light” should apply in the first week of the new year. Those who can should then work in the home office. This enabled people to plan for the longer term.
But there is not only a general recommendation to work from home, but also a right to it: Since January, employees have been allowed to work from home, even if the boss is against it.
The prerequisite for the “Direito a desligar” - the right to switch off - is that the employees have children of eight years of age or younger.
In addition, the job must be an office job and the company must have more than ten employees.
Social Affairs Minister Ana Mendes: "Employees must not incur any costs"
Most jobs in Portugal are in the regions around the largest cities in the country, Porto and Lisbon. Almost three million people live in the Lisbon metropolitan area alone - around a third of the country's ten million inhabitants. Traffic management is a big problem: many people live in “Margem Sul” on the other side of the red bridge Ponte 25 de Abril, where long traffic jams occur every day during rush hour. The option to work from home eliminates the strenuous journey to Lisbon, as well as the costs of public transport or tolls and petrol.
On the other hand, the Minister for Labor and Social Affairs, Ana Mendes, points out that people working from home also have a right to reimbursement for Internet and electricity. After all, companies save at least electricity costs when employees work from home. The president of the employers' association, Luis Miguel Ribeiro, sees it differently. "We have no understanding that companies should always bear the full burden," he
told Tagesschau
. “Under these conditions, we cannot guarantee that the jobs will be retained.” It is also unclear how exactly the electricity consumption for work from home should be quantified.
In any case, working from home is a factor in fighting pandemics, because contacts can be reduced in this way.
Portugal is setting the course with the “right to switch off” and the right to work from home to protect employees accordingly.
(Bettina Menzel)
