Regulating the Right to Disconnect: Perspective of Labour Authorities and Experts

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-785-9_36How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Right To Disconnect; Employer; Employee; Off Working Hours; Labour Law

Abstract

‘Right to Disconnect’ has gained traction globally, advocating for legal protections that allow a worker to be able to disconnect from work and avoid work-related electronic communications during non-work hours. Workers are demanding that employers not contact them after office hours. While employers still need to contact workers in cases of urgency or emergency, the normal approach would be that workers should not be disturbed during their off hours. Is there a need to regulate workers’ right to disconnect? This paper aims to explore the issue of right to disconnect from the perspectives of labour authorities and labour law experts as part of the wider study on right to disconnect in Malaysian private sector employees. The paper analyses interview data of labour law experts and labour authorities in Malaysia and secondary data on the regulation of the right to disconnect. Based on the analysis, the paper highlights contradicting stands of different parties representing the interests of employers and employees on the issue of the right to disconnect and the push for a clear regulatory regime to protect the general occupational safety and health of the workers. The paper recommends a phased and blended approach that combines a statutory framework with flexible internal workplace policies.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

Download article (PDF)

TY  - CONF
AU  - Rohana Abdul Rahman
AU  - Harlida Abdul Wahab
AU  - Siti Zubaidah Othman
AU  - Nik Ahmad Kamal Nik Mahmod
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/07
TI  - Regulating the Right to Disconnect: Perspective of Labour Authorities and Experts
BT  - Proceedings of the UUM 13th International Legal Conference 2025 (UUMILC 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 532
EP  - 539
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-785-9_36
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-785-9_36
ID  - Rahman2026
ER  -