LISBON, Portugal - RBMS is presenting to you the new labour laws on remote work/telework approved by the Portuguese parliament and to be enforced as of January 1, 2022. The new rules are a response to the explosion of home working as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Portugal was the first European country to alter its remote working rules as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic in January this year. The temporary rules made remote working a mandatory option - with a few exceptions - and obliged employers to provide the necessary tools for getting the job done at home. But while remote working during the pandemic brought new flexibility to many, issues such as unequal access to IT equipment showed the need for the government to step in.

From the novelties brought by the law, which comes into force on January 1, 2022, the RBMS team highlights:

1. The notion of telework, which now includes the possibility of alternating between remote and face-to-face work;
2. The expansion of the regime to those who have children up to 8 years of age and also to informal non-primary caregivers;
3. Maintaining the premise that the telework regime presupposes the existence of an agreement, but such agreement may be concluded for a fixed duration (not to exceed 6 months) or for an indefinite period;
4. The statute of obligation for the employer to bear the worker's additional expenses related to telework;
5. The express enshrinement of the employer's duty to abstain from contacting the employee during his/her rest period.

We share with you the article written by Dr. Inês Castelo Branco, a lawyer in the Labor Law department at RBMS, which addresses the changes introduced to the teleworking regime, also noting some gray areas that may compromise the application of this new law.