Australian workers now have the 'right to disconnect'

Australian workers will now have the legal "right to disconnect" from work, as per a rule which came into effect on Monday. This means they can now ignore their bosses' emails, phone calls, and texts outside of work hours.

It entitles employees to ignore out-of-hours attempts by employers to contact them unless this refusal is deemed to become "unreasonable." 

"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. 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," Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said in an interview with national broadcaster ABC.

"Today is a historic day for working people. Australian unions have reclaimed the right to knock off after work," said Michele O'Neil, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. 

Better work-life balance

The decision was hailed by unions, who said it would give workers a right to a better work-life balance. Australians worked on average 281 hours of unpaid overtime last year, according to a survey last year by the Australia Institute.

However, top industry body Australian Industry Group had a cooler reaction. "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 in a statement. 

The law was enacted in February of this year and has come into effect for medium- and large-sized companies. Firms with fewer than 15 employees will also be covered from August 2025.

Australia's workplace relations regulator, Fair Work, said workers may be ordered by a tribunal to stop unreasonable refusal of out-of-hours contact, and likewise employers will be asked to stop unreasonably asking workers to respond during their free time. Factors such as reason for contact, nature of work and compensation for extra work may serve as deciding factors.

What are the rules

What constitutes as "unreasonable" will "depend on the circumstances, Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth said. She added that people should take a "common sense approach" to the law.

If a dispute does arise, the two parties are encouraged to find a solution at work. If that fails, the Fair Work Commission (FWC) will intervene.

The FWC could either order a company to stop contacting employees or stop it from taking disciplinary action, said the Australian Industry Group.

If the FWC finds the employee's reason to deny contact unreasonable, it can order them to respond.

The FWC could impose fines of up A$19,000 ($12,764 or €11,414) for an employee or up to A$94,000 (€56,934) for a company.

Australia is not the first country to pass similar laws. About a dozen European and Latin American countries also have similar regulations. France was the first country to introduce comparable rules in 2017 and Germany later followed suit.

University of Sydney associate professor Chris Wright told the AFP news agency that research showed this right had a positive impact on employees.

Wright said employees were experiencing "availability creep" because of smartphones and other devices which keep them constantly reachable. 

"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 told AFP.

tg/msh (AFP, Reuters)