Does your boss text you on the weekend? Are your work emails still coming even though you’re back at home?
Australian workers in medium and large businesses will now be able to ignore these intrusions into their personal lives thanks to a new “right to disconnect” law that comes into effect today.
“Today is a historic day for workers,” said Australian Council of Trade Unions president Michelle O’Neill.
Free personal time
Australians will be able to “spend time with their loved ones without the stress of having to constantly answer mindless business calls and texts,” he added.
Under the new law, which was passed in February, employees can “refuse to check, read or respond” to communication attempts by their employers or a third party, such as a customer, outside of the working hours them if it is not a “reasonable” request.
Precautions from employers
Employers’ union Australian Industry Group expressed its reservations, calling “the ‘right to disconnect’ laws rushed, poorly designed and very difficult to understand”.
“At the very least, employers and employees will no longer be uncertain whether they can accept or make an out-of-hours phone call to propose overtime,” he added.
“We encourage workers to be informed about the right to disconnect and to take a sensible approach to its implementation,” commented Anna Booth of the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), an independent body responsible for scrutinizing the application of employment law.
What requests are “reasonable” “depends on the circumstances”, the FWO said in a statement. Factors that can determine this include, among others, the reason for the communication, the nature of the work, and whether employees are compensated for working overtime or for always being in communication with their work.
“We want to make sure that, just as people don’t get paid 24 hours a day, they don’t have to work 24 hours a day,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on state television.
“It’s also frankly a mental health issue for people to be able to disconnect from work and connect with their family,” he added. Small businesses with fewer than 15 employees were given extra time and will have to implement the law from August 26, 2025.
The “right to disconnect” came into effect in France in 2017, Spain in 2018 and Belgium in 2022.
Source: ertnews.gr
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