A phone call after you’ve left work. An email you need to check on a Sunday. A stream of texts over the weekend about a new project.
Increasingly, Australians are seeing their work seep into their home life – and now the federal government is making moves to tighten how much bosses can contact employees out of working hours.
A suite of reforms will be debated in federal parliament this week, as the government introduces its final industrial relations reforms on the gig economy and casual employment. The Greens are pushing to insert the proposed new right to disconnect into the reforms.
The minister for employment and workplace relations, Tony Burke, has spent the week in conversations with the Greens and independent senators David Pocock and Jacquie Lambie, who both held reservations about the legislation.
The right to disconnect has been legislated in countries like France and Germany for years, but in Australia it has been included in a handful of enterprise agreements, including for police and teachers.
While business groups say legislating the right to switch off is unnecessary and could lead to the loss of jobs, some unions support it while others want more movement on unpaid overtime.
Jessica Heron, an industrial lawyer with Maurice Blackburn, said Australian industries have traditionally adopted the right to disconnect through enterprise bargaining agreements.
“That has required a unionised workforce, which, typically comes with more rights and entitlements than an un-unionised workforce,” she said. “But how it’s policed is going to be completely different for each industry.”
During the Senate education and employment legislation committee last year, teachers from the Independent Education Union of Australia said the technological shift over the past few years meant teachers were always contactable by parents, which was leading to burnout.
Teacher Abigail Butler, from the Independent Education Union of Australia, said the pressures – which were in part driven by constantly needing to be contactable – meant she was thinking of changing careers.
“We are humans as well, we need sleep and we need time with our families,” Butler said.
In 2022 Queensland public school teachers voted overwhelmingly on a deal that would give them the right to disconnect from work, unless there is an urgent or exceptional circumstance.
The vice-president of Queensland’s Teacher Union, Leah Olsson, said it was triggered by members feeling pressure to reply to parents and management at all hours.
Since then, some teachers had put out-of-office replies in their email signatures, saying emails would only be checked within certain times. Some schools used their newsletters to communicate expectations around when teachers will be contactable.
“It just puts a clear boundary in place to let people know that teachers and school leaders won’t be responding, or will only be responding within these times,” Olsson said.
“It really reflects a growing recognition of the importance of work-life balance, and also to the need to be able to protect the wellbeing of our workers, especially in this digital age.”
In 2019 Victoria police adopted the right to disconnect – also with caveats. If the situation is deemed to be an emergency or an individual’s safety is threatened, superiors are allowed to contact officers, although they are meant to be paid for out-of-hours contact.
“The intent is to support a culture of rest and separation and to aid overall health and wellbeing,” a Victoria police spokesperson said.
“The change has been well received among our workforce, with feedback overwhelmingly positive.”
‘$100bn a year in lost wages’
For the past 15 years, the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work (CFW) has been tracking the amount of unpaid overtime across the country and says, on average, workers do 5.4 hours of unpaid work each week – or 280 hours of unpaid overtime a year.
“That’s in excess of $100bn a year in lost wages across the whole economy,” economist and director at CFW Jim Stanford said.
“The problem of unpaid overtime is not new but it’s taking new forms. The boundary between your work and your life is getting fuzzier and fuzzier.
“Increasingly, because of technology, it takes the form of being asked to perform work-related tasks when you aren’t anywhere near work – at home, out and about, even when you’re on leave, because you can’t escape your mobile phone, your email and your WhatsApp.”
On Radio National on Tuesday morning Burke said it was “unreasonable” workers were expected to work out of office hours and not get paid.
“The starting point of workplace relations law in Australia is meant to be that when you work, you are being paid to work,” he said.
Burke said it was completely reasonable for employers to send emails or contact people for shifts, and the government didn’t “want to get in the way of that”. Instead of legislating punitive measures against employers, such as fines, the government is looking at instead protecting workers from penalties if they don’t engage.
Mark Morey, secretary of Unions NSW, said that to have its full effect, the right to disconnect must be accompanied by “a ban on unpaid overtime for people earning less than $150,000”.
“Technology is more than a disruption to personal and family time. It’s the Trojan horse for wage theft. Implementing an unpaid overtime ban alongside a right to disconnect would have a powerful legal effect but also establish healthy new work norms and culture.”
But Andrew McKellar, chief executive officer of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the amendment, which has not been presented yet, could impact women’s participation in the workforce.
“This sort of heavy-handed legislation risks taking Australia back to a rigid working environment that is undesirable for parents, especially women,” McKellar said. “This rigidity also undermines the case for working from home, which appeals to many employees with family responsibilities.
“This is adequately dealt with by existing laws. It’s not necessary to prescriptively enshrine conditions of employment in this way.”
