The right to disconnect feels more about letting people disconnect "after hours". But this depends on your hours.
My "team" is composed of around 700 people across Asia and Europe.
My kids are in school during work hours.
My 6pm—midnight slot is strictly private life and there is no reason for it to be otherwise.
So, your last line contradicts the rest of your own comment.
I said in another comment, If you were a police officer, pilot, truck driver, deep sea diver or in numerous other professions, you'd be expected to do some weird hours and have a lot of time away from home.
This is where I think people are being unreasonable. Remote work, we have it better than ever, no commutes, no time away from family, almost non-inconvenience but now, even a late night meeting is against "my time".
I think with remote work, the cost of walking 50 meters, sitting in a comfortable chair and dialing into a meeting from 11pm-12am is pretty inconsequential all things considered. You can probably have the meeting in your jammies on the couch.
I'm not 100% discounting that it's inconvenient, but I mean, relative to the things I've been through and others have to go through, it's minuscule in comparison.
Lastly, I think you're just lucky you work for a company who allows you to just say no to meeting with your peers in other time zones. Again, you might be lucky and everyone has a good crossover with you, but many don't have this luxury, and never meeting with your peers, at least where I work, means you're not part of the team and you're getting fired.
We rotate the difficult meetings in the group so we all feel some of the pain, but three is a bit of pain and I guess that's why it's called "a job" and why I'm part of a team.
Staying at peoples houses who get up early and make a lot of noise after a hard night falling asleep is never much fun.
A lot of good points on this thread, and even though I've always advocated for doing more async work within our team, I'll push a bit harder now.
I'm all for restricting employers from my personal space, however I would expect the same to be applied to all other members rather than be a special case.
Personally, I tend to rotate the awkward meetings so it sucks equally rather than weighted more on someone else. As a remote worker, myself and my family are ok with that because I'm available during the daytime.
However, if you're unable to work async nor be flexible to accommodate your fellow team members, then I suppose the company's recruitment process is to blame.
With remote work I appreciate having the option to use the inevitable idle time to be more efficient with house chores and such but remote work never brought me the freedom you tout...
I have worked remotely in the past before COVID and tried your suggested approach, would be free during afternoons and work from 17-00, or split the day in morning and evening work. It didn't ever give me the same relaxation as I get from having free time until the end of the day.
So there you go, we're different.
For me working remotely isn't just about having my ass in a different geographical location, it's about flexibility. Both in my private and professional life.
I didn't say you can't spend time with your kids, but personally, working 8am-9am then 8pm-12pm doesn't sound so bad either. (for example). I find kids need to do homework and get to bed early so those times for me would work pretty well.