Employees' Right to Disconnection Outside Working Hours

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the new right to refuse communication under the Thai Labour Protection Act 1998 section 23/1 and compare it to the right to disconnect whether they are similar or applicable. Since nowadays, despite all the benefits of information and communication technologies, their existence also blurs the boundaries between professional and private life of people. This affects employees’ health and safety. The author therefore conducted this law research regarding the right to refuse communication in Thailand and the right to disconnect in other countries in the hope of promoting Thai employees’ well-being. Although the Thai Labour Protection Act 1998 section 23/1 appears to be issued to protect the employees’ privacy rights, it could not fully resolve the problem of interruption outside of working hours because the wording of the right to refuse communication under Thai Law and the right to disconnect under other countries’ law is not the same.

Because of this problem the author compares the existing Thai law with other countries’ law through various sources regarding the right to refuse communication and the right to disconnect in order to consider which one is appropriate for Thai law.

It has been found that the right to disconnect under each country’s labour law could be usefully adopted more than the right to refuse communication because the right to disconnect implies that the employer is not able to contact the employee at the outset.