Australia yesterday gave millions of workers the legal right to “disconnect,” allowing them to ignore unreasonable out-of-hours calls, e-mails and texts from their bosses.
People can now refuse to monitor, read or respond to their employers’ attempts to contact them outside work hours — unless that refusal is deemed “unreasonable.”
Unions welcomed the legislation, saying it gave workers a way to reclaim some work-life balance.
Photo: Reuters
“Today is a historic day for working people,” Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele O’Neil said. “Australian unions have reclaimed the right to knock off after work.”
In the streets of Sydney, people appeared to welcome the change.
“I have a very hard time disconnecting and even though I may not necessarily be logged on, my brain is constantly working overtime,” not-for-profit worker Karolina Joseski said. “So getting that after-hour call from my boss doesn’t necessarily help.”
However, the reform got a cool welcome from Australia’s top industry body.
CONFUSION
“The ‘right to disconnect’ laws are rushed, poorly thought out and deeply confusing,” the Australian Industry Group said in a statement.
“At the very least, employers and employees will now be uncertain about whether they can take or make a call out of hours to offer an extra shift,” it said.
The law is similar to those of some European and Latin American nations.
Research indicates that the right to disconnect benefits employees, University of Sydney associate professor Chris Wright said.
More than 70 percent of workers in EU companies with a right to disconnect policy considered its impact to be positive, according to study by the EU work-related agency Eurofound in November last year.
Employees are experiencing “availability creep” as smartphones and other digital devices put them in reach of their employers, Wright said.
“Having a measure that restores to some extent the boundary between people’s work and non-work lives is a positive thing, certainly for employees, but also for employers,” he said, particularly in industries trying to lure new workers.
The law, enacted in February, came into force for medium-sized and large companies as of yesterday.
Smaller firms with fewer than 15 employees would be covered from Aug. 26 next year.
The head of Australia’s workplace relations regulator, Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth, said people should take a “commonsense approach” to applying the new law.
Under the legislation, workers can be ordered by a tribunal to stop unreasonably refusing out-of-hours contact, and employers likewise can be ordered to stop unreasonably requiring employees to respond, the regulator said.
The question of what is reasonable would “depend on the circumstances,” the Fair Work Ombudsman said in a statement.
Deciding factors might include the reason for the contact, the nature of the employee’s role and their compensation for working extra hours or being available, it said.
MENTAL HEALTH ISSUE
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hailed the reform, which was pushed through by his Labor government.
“We want to make sure that just as people don’t get paid 24 hours a day, they don’t have to work for 24 hours a day,” he told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“It’s a mental health issue, frankly, as well, for people to be able to disconnect from their work and connect with their family and their life,” he said.
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