Does your boss text you on the weekend? Does your work email keep ringing long after you’ve gone home?
Los Australian employees They can now ignore these and other intrusions into their private lives thanks to a new law “right to disconnect” designed to stop work emails and calls from intruding into your personal life.
The new rule, which came into force on Mondaymeans that employees, in most cases, cannot be sanctioned for refusing to read or respond to their bosses’ contacts outside of working hours.
Supporters say the law gives workers the confidence to oppose the constant invasion of their personal lives through work emails, texts and calls, a trend that has accelerated since the COVID-19 pandemic upended the divide between home and work.
“Before digital technology existed there was no invasion“People would go home at the end of a shift and there would be no contact until they came back the next day,” says John Hopkins, an associate professor at Swinburne University of Technology.
“Now, all over the world it is the norm to have emails, SMS, phone calls outside of those hours, even when on vacation”.
Australians worked an average of 281 unpaid overtime hours in 2023according to a survey last year by the Australia Institute, which estimated the monetary value of that work at A$130 billion (US$88 billion).
The changes add Australia to a group of about two dozen countries, mostly in Europe and Latin America, that have similar laws.
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The pioneer France introduced the regulation in 2017 And a year later it fined pest control company Rentokil Initial €60,000 ($66,700) for requiring an employee to keep his phone on at all times.
To deal with emergencies and work with irregular hours, the norm continues to allow entrepreneurs contact their employees, who may only refuse to respond when it is reasonable to do so.
Determining whether a refusal is reasonable will be up to the Australian employment arbitrator, the Fair Work Commission (FWC), who must take into account the employee’s role, personal circumstances and how and why the contact occurred.
The Australian Industry Group, a business lobby group, says ambiguity over how the standard is applied will create confusion between bosses and workers. Jobs will become less flexible, which will slow down the economy, he added.
“The laws literally and figuratively came out of nowhere, they were introduced without hardly consulting its practical effects and have left little time for businesses to prepare,” the group said Thursday.
Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michele O’Neil said the caveat in the bill meant it would not interfere with reasonable requests. Instead, it would prevent workers from paying the price for poor management planning.
“We believe this will make bosses stop and think about whether They really need to send that message text or email”.
(1 dollar = 0.8992 euros) (1 dollar = 1.4723 Australian dollars).
Australian workers can now ignore work messages and calls after hours
