Australian employees can now ignore their Boss Contact us after work! A new “Right to unsubscribe” was introduced in Australia to protect workers from the intrusion of work-related emails, text messages and calls into their private lives. The law, which came into force on Monday, ensures that workers cannot be penalised for failing to respond to work-related communications outside of their set working hours, except in reasonable circumstances.
The law provides exceptions in emergency situations and workplaces with irregular hours, where employers can still contact their employees, but employees can refuse to respond if it is reasonable to do so.
The Fair Work Commission (FWC), Australia’s industrial arbitration tribunal, determines the reasonableness of a refusal, taking into account factors such as the employee’s role, personal circumstances and the reason for contact. The FWC has the power to make injunctions and impose fines of up to A$19,000 for an employee or A$94,000 for a business.
The introduction of digital technologies is blurring the boundaries between work and private life. Many employees find that work-related communication spills over into their free time.
“Before digital technology came along, there were no assaults. People went home at the end of their shift and had no contact until they returned the next day,” Johns HopkinsAn associate professor at Swinburne University of Technology was quoted as saying by Reuters.
The Australia Institute estimates that Australians will have worked an average of 281 hours of unpaid overtime by 2023, worth A$130 billion (US$88 billion).
Australia joins a long list of countries that have introduced similar laws, mainly in Europe and Latin America. France, a pioneer in the field, introduced the regulations in 2017 and is already enforcing them. For example, pest control company Rentokil Initial was fined 60,000 euros ($66,700) for requiring an employee to keep his phone switched on at all times.
Rachel Abdelnour, who works in advertising, believes these laws are extremely important and explains: “I think it’s really important that we have laws like this. We spend so much time on our phones and our emails, all day long, and I think it’s already very difficult to switch off.”