Telework will be extended to parents with children with disabilities or chronic illness
MEPs unanimously approved, as part of the votes on the Decent Work Agenda, a PS proposal extending the right to telework to parents with children with disabilities or chronic illness, regardless of age.
The Socialists' proposal was approved, in speciality, in the working group on labour changes within the Decent Work Agenda.
"The worker with a child up to three years of age or, regardless of age, with a child with a disability or chronic illness who lives with him/her under the communion of table and board, has the right to exercise the activity in a telework regime, when this is compatible with the activity performed and the employer has the resources and means to do so".
However, the Portuguese Social Democratic Party (PSD) rejected a proposal from the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which intended to include in this article the right to telework for people with children suffering from oncological diseases.
Changes to labour law will be put to a vote and should come into force in April.
In 2021, when the telework regime was amended, it came to cover, in addition to parents with children up to three years old, parents with children up to eight years old, without the need for an agreement with the employer, provided that it is exercised by both parents "in successive periods of equal duration within a maximum reference period of 12 months".
Telework was also extended at that time to single-parent families or situations in which only one of the parents, demonstrably, meets the conditions to exercise the activity in a telework regime".
This extension made in 2021 excludes, however, workers in micro-enterprises, i.e. companies with fewer than ten employees.
Workers with the status of informal non-main caregiver are also now entitled to telework for a maximum period of four consecutive or interspersed years.