TL;DR: Australia's Fair Work Commission announced a government-mandated "right to disconnect." Workers can now ignore after-hours work-related contact "within reason." It aims to strike a fair balance between work and life and ensure employers do not take advantage of workers who feel obligated to perform duties without pay.
Lawmakers passed the new rule in February, but it only kicked in on Monday for employees of large enterprises. Small businesses have until August 2025 before it affects them.
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) says the rule does not ban employers from contacting workers. Instead, it gives people the right to put off or disconnect any contact with their bosses or coworkers while off work.
"It's really about trying to bring back some work-life balance and make sure that people aren't racking up hours of unpaid overtime for checking emails and responding to things at a time when they're not being paid," said Australia's Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations Murray Watt.
However, the Commission said that employees are not entirely off the hook. Contact refusals cannot be "unreasonable." While what is within reason can be subjective, the FWC pointed out examples of reasonable contact.
First and foremost, employees cannot reasonably refuse messages the employer is legally required to make. Beyond legal reasons, each contact is dynamic, and the Commission will assess certain factors when determining if a disconnection was unreasonable. These conditions include the disruption the call causes, whether the employee receives bonuses or other compensation outside of working hours, role and responsibility levels, and other factors.
Media release: Right to disconnect begins today https://t.co/1qPUp0yUxF
– Fair Work Ombudsman (@fairwork_gov_au) August 25, 2024
For example, the CEO calling the CFO to discuss a meeting scheduled for Monday morning is acceptable. However, calling a low-level employee requesting they email an updated report before returning to work is not.
"If it was an emergency situation, of course, people would expect an employee to respond to something like that," Watt explained. "But if it's a run-of-the-mill thing … then they should wait till the next work day, so that people can actually enjoy their private lives, enjoy time with their family and their friends, play sport or whatever they want to do after hours, without feeling like they're chained to the desk at a time when they're not actually being paid because that's just not fair."
Enforcement is tricky, especially if the employee says the contact was not required and the employer is of the opposite opinion. Currently, enforcement works like arbitration, with the FWC as the judge. Therefore, most, if not all, cases will be employee-initiated. However, to curb unwarranted and false reporting, employees must try to resolve the issue with the employer first. If the conflict persists, the worker can file a complaint, and the Commission will decide if the contact is legal.
The line between work and home life is particularly blurred in the post-pandemic landscape. Since most communication with employees who work remotely is electronic, it is easy for employers to cross the line. It's equally easy for employees to allow the intrusion, whether out of habit or an unwarranted sense of obligation, leading to employees working off the clock.
Australia's Centre for Future Work found that 70 percent of employees operated outside their scheduled hours without compensation. The survey determined that Australians put in an average of 281 hours of unpaid overtime in 2023, equating to about $11,055 per year per employee.
Unsurprisingly, the labor unions have called the legislation a win, but it's not unopposed. Opposition party leader Peter Dutton called the right-to-disconnect rules a "threat to productivity" and promised to repeal the law if his party gains control after the 2025 federal election. Likewise, the Business Council of Australia said the law comes when Australia's economy is reeling.
"[These rules] risk holding Australia's historically low productivity back even further at a time when the economy is already stalling," the Council said on Monday.
Work-life balance wins as Australia introduces "right to disconnect" law
