Digital servitude at work: modern-day slavery

Abstract

This article aimed to conduct a study on the theme of modern slavery in Labor Law, suggesting a new type of work analogous to slave conditions, which does not occur in the field of deprivation of physical freedom but in a virtual way, the excessive use of unregulated information and communication technologies, leading to the elimination of the barrier between working time and private life, with the incidence of telepressure to the work and finally reflecting on the digital slavery. This reality occurs due to the lack of regulation and effective protection regarding the good use of technology in this new work environment. Questions will be raised regarding hyper connection and telepressure and consequently the elimination of the period of private life, with reflections on health and psychosocial risks to the worker, thus arriving at digital servitude. It then analyzes the right to digital disconnection as a possible way to guarantee fundamental rights and combat psychological slavery that generated the current terminology of digital slavery. Nowadays, one can no longer minimize the virtual and psychosocial risks at the work. Finally, a conclusion of the facts exposed is made, with the intention of provoking a reflection of the reader and juslaboralistas on the importance of prevention and guarantee of the psychological and virtual freedom of the worker.