The right to digital disconnection in collective bargaining: scope, limits, and conditions for effectiveness. A comparative approach to the Portuguese legal framework

Abstract

Recent decades have been marked by a period of intense technological transformation that has profoundly altered the traditional framework on which labour relations were based. The progressive expansion of digital connectivity has blurred the traditional boundaries of working hours and the workplace, creating scenarios characterised by constant availability and the growing interpenetration of professional and personal spheres. In this context, the right to digital disconnection emerges as a necessary response to the risks arising from hyperconnectivity.

Its configuration is not limited to general regulatory provisions, but finds its main channel of implementation in collective bargaining and internal company instruments, allowing for flexible adaptation to organisational specificities. On this basis, the right is grounded in the protection of occupational health, work-life balance and privacy, taking the form of an individual right not to respond to communications outside working hours, without adverse consequences.

At the same time, its objective and subjective scope, the organisational conditions that guarantee its effectiveness, and the exceptions that govern its exercise highlight the complexity of its implementation in digitalised work environments, where the tension between availability and rest stands as one of the main challenges of contemporary labour law.

The analysis is further enriched by a comparative reference to Portuguese law, whose configuration of disconnection through the employer’s duty to refrain from contact helps to illuminate, by contrast, the specific features and limits of the Spanish model.