Jobs Act: ok to remote employee checks via PC and mobile phone. Here's what changes

The explanatory report of one of the implementing decrees of the Jobs Act opens the debate on the remote controls of the employee by the employer. The decree, in fact, would abolish article 4 of the Workers' Statute which limited remote checks on the worker via company mobile phone and computer. Here's how the law changes.

"Union agreement or ministerial authorization are not necessary for the assignment to the workers of the tools used to render the work performance, even if the possibility of remote control of the worker also derives from them" the most relevant innovations in subject of employee controls.

The new provisions are read in the explanatory report of the text of one of the implementing decrees of the Jobs act, sent to the Labor commission of the Chamber, which effectively cancels article 4 of the Workers' Statute. The scrapped premier didn't just send article 18 to the attic, the next victim of the government could be the article that limited controls by employers.

Article 4 of the Statute prohibits "the use of audiovisual systems and other equipment for the purpose of remote monitoring of workers' activities", while it provides for the use of "control systems and equipment that are required by organizational and production needs or by workplace safety , but from which also derives the possibility of remote control of the workers' activity” and in any case only after an agreement between employers and trade union representatives.

The hypothesis proposed by the government provides for the distinction between checks on work systems and work tools. As regards the former, controls would be liberalized in the event of a trade union agreement or administrative authorisation; while for work tools such as PCs and company mobile phones, controls would be cleared through customs without the need to ask for authorisations.

The implementing decree of the Jobs act envisages "the possibility that the data deriving from audiovisual systems and other control tools are used for any purpose connected to the employment relationship, provided that the worker is given adequate information about the methods of use of the tools and the performance of checks, always, in any case, in compliance with the Privacy Code”.

In essence, therefore, the results of the checks carried out using work tools, authorized or not, can be used by the employer for any purpose, even to collect relevant information on a disciplinary level. Provided that the company delivers a company policy document to the employees with all the news in terms of remote controls.