Topical Problems of Legal Regulation of Remote Working

The year 2020 has brought new challenges to the world. The pandemic has forced to change views on many things and has shown "weak" sides of all spheres of public life, especially the social sphere. In this paper there is in particular the impact of the pandemic on labor relations. Suddenly employees and employers were forced to work remotely, and nobody had time to carefully organize this change. As the result, some problems in legislative regulation of this mode were identified. At the same time, it is important to say that in the conditions of rapid digitalization in the modern world, remote workers are not such a rare phenomenon. In this regard, the International Labour Organization promptly developed recommendations for employers and employees about the regulation of labor relations. These acts review the functions and responsibilities of both parties as a result of turning to remote working mode, help to resolve various issues, and determine different ways to solve problems that arise due to new conditions. For example, it is important to highlight such points as: 1) the need to estimate the feasibility and possibility of the employee's transition to remote work (to the issues of criteria for stable Internet access, as well as the overall compliance of the employee's housing with security requirements, etc.); 2) the obligation of the employer to provide the employee with all the technical tools necessary for the performance of their work functions; 3) Recommendations to reimburse the employee for expenses incurred during remote work at home (payment for Internet connection, electricity, etc.). The ILO also notes that in addition to resolving technical issues, it is also important to work out how to measure productivity and working hours in a remote mode. Due to the fact that the presence at the workplace is not actually controlled by the employer, the framework of the working time regime becomes indefinite. There can appear the abuse and discrimination of the employer, who focuses not on the number of hours spent at the computer, but on the amount of work performed. And the more work an employee does, the more tasks are sent to him. In this regard, the ILO notes the need for the employer to define goals and deadlines for their achievements, to make them clear and understandable to the employee, to develop a transparent accountability plan, to analyze tasks and monitor the timing of their implementation. And, as the main things are to evaluate and to control the quality and quantity of completed tasks and the achievement of results, not the time worked. In addition to international regulation, all countries have also begun to introduce national measures to improve the regulation of labor relations. For example: 1) Hungary has started to introduce flexible measures to regulate the "home office" (for example, compensation for gas and water payments; mandatory provision of a computer, telephone, etc.); 2) In some States of America, employees are free from taxation of funds allocated to them due to remote work; 3) the UK has developed a special national guide to the concept of "telework" (based on the General recommendations of the ILO in this direction). As a result, we can say that European countries are actively introducing new law regulations for remote work. Talking about Russia, changes are not clearly marked on a national scale, we can only note individual practices at local levels or at the levels of federal territories. Due to the fact that there is no general concept of legislative regulation yet, there is no uniformity of legal norms that protect the interests of the employee and do not worsen his position in comparison with office work.