Australia is extending its laidback reputation to the workplace by granting employees a “right to disconnect” when they are off the clock.

Australian workers on Monday gained the legal right to ignore emails and phone calls from bosses outside of work hours, unless doing so is deemed “unreasonable”.

The law Is Australia’s response to the blurring of boundaries between people’s professional and personal lives amid employers’ growing reliance on digital communications and the popularity of remote working since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Australia’s centre-left Labor Party hopes the measure – introduced as part of a package of labour reforms that includes new rules for casual employment and minimum wage standards for delivery riders – will ease pressure on workers to monitor their phone when they are supposed to be relaxing and spending time with their loved ones.

“What we are simply saying is that someone who isn’t being paid 24 hours a day shouldn’t be penalised if they’re not online and available 24 hours a day,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at a news conference introducing the legislation in February.

Workplaces that breach the rules, which will be enforced by the country’s Fair Work Commission tribunal, face fines of up to 93,900 Australian dollars ($63,805).

Australia is not the first country to introduce a right to disconnect from work.

In 2017, France introduced legislation to protect workers from being punished for not replying to messages outside of work hours, while Germany, Italy and Canada have adopted similar measures.

But the perceived need for such a measure in Australia, the first country to introduce the eight-hour work day, sits uncomfortably with its international image as a “lucky country” full of sun-kissed beaches and easygoing people.

Despite Australia’s laidback image, researchers, experts and labour advocates argue the country is facing a growing culture of overwork.

Last year, the average Australian employee performed an average of 5.4 hours of unpaid work each week, while those aged 18 to 29 carried out 7.4 hours of uncompensated labour, according to a report by the Australia Institute.

Before taking up her first job as a sales assistant in Melbourne, Chinese migrant Wong had heard that Australian workplaces did not usually expect their employees to work beyond a nine-to-five schedule and or contact them during their free time.

But Wong, who is in her late 20s, said that her boss often asked her to perform tasks after she had clocked off.

She said her experience of overwork was actually “worse” than in China, which is infamous for a “996” work culture that sees some employees forced to work from 9am to 9pm, six days per week.

“I worked in private tutoring when I was in China,” Wong, who asked to be referred to by her surname, told Al Jazeera.

“At that time, I would have to reply to messages from parents at night occasionally, but that wouldn’t take up so much personal time.”

Chris Wright, an associate professor in the Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney, said that while Australians are often seen to be “playing hard”, they also work longer hours than people in many other developed nations.

Wright cited the OECD Better Life Index of 2018, which found that Australia’s full-time workers devote 14.4 hours to personal care and leisure each day, below the OECD average of 15 hours.

The index also found that 13 percent of Australian employees “work very long hours”, compared with the OECD average of 10 percent.

“There’s been some studies in Australia that indicate that technology had the effect of eroding people’s boundaries between people’s work lives and their non-work lives,” Wright told Al Jazeera.

“This is always a culture that characterises work in Australia. People might work standard working hours, but once they leave their office each day, they are often still working.”

Wright also noted that despite long working hours, Australia has recorded slow productivity growth in the past two decades, with labour productivity for the whole economy falling by 3.7 percent in 2022-2023.

Wright said he hopes the right-to-disconnect law can boost Australia’s productivity by pushing companies to consider more efficient approaches at work.

“There are often countries that have lower working hours… like France with its 35-hour work week. That’s been kind of criticised a bit… but it’s actually been a contributing factor that led France to have quite good productivity outcomes,” Wright said.

“And I think the right-to-disconnect laws will help [Australian companies] to think more creatively about how to work smarter.”

Michele O’Neil, the president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, said her organisation had been campaigning for the right to disconnect for years.

“We really welcome the fact that it’s now a right for workers in law in Australia, and that is important because the simple principle should apply, that you should be paid for all the work you do,” O’Neil told Al Jazeera.

Bran Black, the chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, said that the issue of allowing employees to switch off outside the office should be dealt with in workplaces instead of through legislation.

“The combined effect of the government’s new laws, including new definitions for casual employees and independent contractors, will increase red tape and union power, while reducing productivity and hitting our economy at the worst possible time,” Black told Al Jazeera.

“Our employment laws need to incentivise getting more people into work rather than creating more red tape to hiring people.”

The new law does not bar employers from contacting employees and bosses can argue that an employee’s refusal to communicate is unreasonable, prompting debate about whether employees will feel confident to actually ignore calls and messages.

Wong, who was frustrated by her boss’s regular communications outside of her work hours, said she would be reluctant to exercise such a right out of concern she would receive a “bad performance review” in her appraisals.

Still, the law could lay the ground for companies to fix Australia’s “always on” work culture, said John Hopkins, an associate professor of Management at Swinburne University of Technology.

“[The law] will hopefully stimulate conversation around what is reasonable and unreasonable contact outside work hours,” Hopkins told Al Jazeera.

“It will actually encourage discussion around what kind of contact is already happening and why is that contact happening. Why are employers contacting their employees outside of their work hours – is that essential? And hopefully, it will lead to a reduction in that unnecessary contact,” he added.

“But the main thing it does is give the employee the right not to read it or reply until they’re working again.” (Al Jazeera)

•PHOTO: Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks at a news conference with New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon at Australia’s Parliament House on August 16, 2024 [Tracey Nearmy/Reuters]

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