Employees could soon have the right to not be contacted by their boss outside of work hours as Labor Minister Tony Burke reveals bombshell legislation is in the works – before making embarrassing admission
Workers in Australia could soon have the legal right not to be contacted by their bosses outside working hours after the Employment Minister indicated he was in favor of the idea.
Tony Burke, Minister of Employment and Workplace Relations, told Q+A on Monday that the legislation would prevent bosses from contacting their staff via text, email or phone calls outside of working hours.
“It’s something that we haven’t made a final government decision on yet (but) I’m really drawn to the idea,” Burke said.
Patricia Karvelas, host of the ABC programme, then asked Mr Burke, who is also the Minister of the Arts, if he ever contacts his own staff outside office hours, to which he stumbled over his words as the audience laughed.
“There’s a different arrangement about their overtime and things like that… but I respect the weekend,” Mr. Burke joked.
Q+A presenter Patricia Karvelas (pictured) pressured the minister on Monday night about his possible plans to legislate the ‘right to disconnect’
Earlier, Mr. Burke spoke about how technology had changed to make people available 24 hours a day.
“It used to be that if you were on call, you got redundancy pay,” he said.
“Someone who carried a beeper had an on-call allowance because they could be contacted at any time.
“Once we all bought our own beepers on our phones, people just get contacted.”
Greens Senator Barbara Pocock has pushed for an amendment to the Fair Work Act, dubbed the “Right to Disconnect” bill, that would enshrine the right of employees to ignore emails and texts that arrive after hours.
Senator Pocock published the Work and Care Report in March, calling for a major overhaul of Australian workplace legislation, including a four-day work week, and protesting the “incessant creep of availability where we feel the need to respond on work messages after hours’.
“The pressure on employees to be always available, especially when working remotely, clearly has serious consequences for mental and physical health and increases work-related stress,” the report states.
“The Greens want a right to disconnect from work in federal law.”
Burke revealed on Tuesday that several Labor members have supported the report’s recommendations.
Australia would not be the first country to introduce such a law.
France was the first European country to introduce legislation in 2017 requiring employers to sign agreements with unions for the right to disconnect from technology after working hours.
Italy, Spain, Portugal and Belgium followed.
While Germany has no comparable law, many of its companies are implementing policies that have the same effect.
The ‘right to switch off’ is based on legislation in France, where companies with more than 50 employees have been required since 2017 to define the hours during which staff cannot send or answer emails
For example, in 2012, Volkswagen stopped sending e-mails to employees’ mobile phones between 6 p.m. and 7 a.m. through e-mail servers.
In the UK, the opposition Labor party has floated plans to include a ‘right to disengage’ in their election manifesto. Critics have dubbed the notion a “ski charter.”
In July, the Australian Services Union (ASU) launched a campaign to enshrine the right to disconnect in the Fair Work Act after a survey of 154 administrative and clerical staff found that seven out of ten regularly worked outside agreed working hours.
Emeline Gaske, ASU’s deputy national secretary, said the union pushed for the law change because “most workers don’t feel they can say no to the increasing expectation of taking work home.”
“As a result, 70 percent regularly perform unpaid work outside agreed working hours, with almost one in five working more than eight hours (unpaid overtime) every two weeks,” Ms Gaske told the newspaper. Australian financial statement.
“This expectation, and the fear for many that their careers will be negatively impacted if they drop out, has a significant negative impact on the physical and mental health and well-being of employees and their personal relationships.”