Sydney — Australian employees now have the right to ignore their bosses outside working hours thanks to a new law which enshrines the “right to disconnect.” The legislation, which passed in February and came into force Monday, protects workers who refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact from their employers after the hours of work. More than 20 countries, including France, have brought in similar laws.
Millions of Australians can now break free from the stress of after-hours calls and emails from work.
The Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt told reporters in Queensland that it was “not acceptable” for workers to take “constant calls or constant emails…when they’re not getting paid to do it.”
Research has indicated that each Australian worker undertakes an average of 5.4 hours per week of unpaid work, which equates to billions of dollars in lost wages.
Sally McManus, the secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. Monday that the new law is fair.
“Australian workers now have a right to disconnect, which is really awesome. Not all employers but some employers have completely blurred or crossed over those boundaries and are expecting people to be connected and answer their emails and look at their phones 24/7 and that is just not on,” said McManus.
Business groups, however, insist the “right to disconnect” law could hamper productivity and they complain about more layers of bureaucracy.
Companies found in contravention of the measures could face large fines.
However, any refusal by workers to respond to out-of-hours contact from their bosses must be considered to be ‘reasonable’ but it’s not clear what that means.
Brent Ferguson is from the Australian Industry Group. He told local media that it is a grey area.
“What is reasonable or unreasonable is going to depend on the individual circumstances and that uncertainty is part of the difficulty that industry is really grappling with at the moment,” he said.
The legislation only covers companies with more than 15 members of staff. Employees of smaller businesses will be able to disconnect after work in a year’s time.
Experts have said that the COVID-19 pandemic and working from home blurred the lines between employment and the private lives of workers.
They believe Australia’s “right to disconnect law” is an attempt to rebalance the working day and protect the free time of millions of employees.
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