“Right to Disconnect” Law in Australia

No work-life balance is a growing problem in today’s world. One often finds themselves in positions where they have to work overtime and often have little to no time for themselves. To combat this, the Australian government has introduced a new law. On Monday, the Australian government extended the legal right to its citizens to ignore their boss’ or senior’s call or messages after their shift has ended. This law aims to offer relief to people who feel obligated to be available around the clock professionally.

What does the law say?

The law advocates for more relaxed work environments. It aims to encourage the culture of having a work-life balance. Workers seem to report a higher stress level nowadays because of the pervasive work culture and the pressures of climbing up the ladder professionally. 

The law permits employees to decline or ignore work calls and messages once their shift is over. If the employees have reasonable grounds to ignore such communication, they cannot be penalised for it. The law aims to protect the employees. The law, however, does permit employers to contact their workers beyond work hours if there is an emergency or if the work hours in itself are irregular.

The Fair Works Commission (FWC) in Australia will be the judge of what is considered a fair or unfair reason to reach out and will also decide the penalty for such an action. For an employee the penalty could be up to 19,000 Australian Dollars, while for a company this could go up to 94,000 Australian Dollars.

The Push behind such a Law

The advent of new technology, especially smartphones and text messaging, has made it very convenient to transfer information or gain access to other people. This also puts pressure on people to be available at all times, otherwise they may miss out on an important update. Being out of loop may mean poor work performance in the longer run. This has created a generation of chronically online, chronically available and exhausted workers. This is not healthy for the work environment as well as the employee’s mental health. This situation has only gotten worse since the pandemic where the lines between home and work were blurred. Many cases of burnouts have emerged as a result of that which only proves to be a counter-productive exercise in the longer run.

Australia is not the first country to introduce such a law. Such legal machinery also exists in European and Latin American countries including Canada, Germany, Italy and France. Those countries have reported higher job satisfaction and retention, increase in productivity, improved work-life balance, and reduced stress and burnout within its employees.