In Australia, workers are now legally protected if they abandon their office outside of working hours.
That's because a new law on the “right to disconnect” came into effect on Monday (August 26). The law is designed to protect workers' personal time from work-related emails and calls.
This rule ensures that employees, in most cases, cannot be punished for refusing to read or respond to contacts from their office outside of work hours.
For employers or companies that persist, authorities can intervene, and can even impose fines of up to thousands of dollars.
Supporters of the law argue that it gives workers confidence to resist the constant invasion of their personal lives through email, text messages and phone calls; a trend that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, blurring the lines between home and work.
Rachel Abdelnour, who works in advertising in Sydney, said the change would help her stay connected in an industry where clients often have different working hours.
“I think it's actually really important that we have a law like this. We spend so much time connected to our phones, connected to our emails all day long, and I think it's really hard to switch off,” Abdelnour told Reuters news agency.
But the reforms have been met with a lukewarm reception from industry heavyweights, the Australian Industry Group, which called the new rules “very confusing.”
“We are concerned that this is going to be very difficult, for both employers and employees, because we are entering uncharted territory here. There is usually an agreement in the workplace about when people can and cannot be contacted. At the moment, there is a lot of uncertainty about how this new law, complete with criminal penalties for employers, will actually work in practice,” Innes Willox, the group’s chief executive, told AFP news agency.
According to a survey by the Australia Institute, Australians will work an average of 281 hours of unpaid overtime by 2023,
They estimated that time to be equivalent to about $88 billion US dollars.
With the law, Australia joins about two dozen countries that have similar protections, including France, which introduced its own regulations in 2017.
While aimed at supporting a better work-life balance, the legislation also recognises the need for emergency contacts, allowing employers to contact staff when necessary. (th/ka)
