Sydney, Australia – Australia is extending its laid-back reputation to the workplace by giving employees a “right to disconnect” when they are not working.
Australian workers on Monday won the legal right to ignore emails and phone calls from their bosses outside of work hours unless doing so is deemed “unreasonable”.
The law is Australia's response to the increasing 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 move, introduced as part of a package of labour reforms that included new rules for casual employment and minimum wage standards for delivery drivers, will ease pressure on workers to monitor their phones when they are supposed to be relaxing and spending time with loved ones.
“What we are simply saying is that someone who is not paid 24 hours a day should not be penalized if they are not online and available 24 hours a day,” Premier Anthony Albanese said at a news conference to introduce the legislation in February.
Workplaces that fail to comply with the rules, which will be enforced by the country's Fair Work Commission tribunal, will face fines of up to A$93,900 ($63,805).
Australia is not the first country to introduce the right to disconnect from work.
In 2017, France introduced legislation to protect workers from being punished for not responding to messages outside of working hours, while Germany, Italy and Canada adopted similar measures.
But the perceived need for such a measure in Australia, the first country to introduce the eight-hour workday, does not fit with its international image as a “lucky country” full of sunny beaches and easy-going people.
Despite Australia's laid-back image, researchers, experts and labour advocates say the country is facing a growing culture of overwork.
Last year, the average Australian employee did an average of 5.4 hours of unpaid work each week, while those aged 18 to 29 did 7.4 hours of unpaid work, according to a report by the Australia Institute.
Before accepting her first job as a sales assistant in Melbourne, Chinese migrant Wong had heard that Australian workplaces typically did not expect their employees to work beyond the nine-to-five schedule and not to contact them during their free time.
But Wong, who is in his 20s, said his boss often asked him to perform tasks after he finished his workday.
She said her experience of overwork was actually “worse” than in China, which is famous for its “996” work culture that sees some employees forced to work from 9am to 9pm, six days a week.
“I worked as a private tutor when I was in China,” Wong, who asked to be referred to by her last name, told Al Jazeera.
“Back then, I had to answer messages from my parents at night from time to time, but that didn’t take up too much of my personal time.”
Chris Wright, associate professor of Work Discipline and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney, said that while Australians are often seen as “working hard”, they also work longer hours than people in many other developed nations.
Wright cited the OECD's 2018 Better Life Index, which found that full-time workers in Australia spend 14.4 hours on personal care and leisure each day, below the OECD average of 15 hours.
The index also found that 13 per cent of Australian employees “work long hours”, compared with the OECD average of 10 per cent.
“There have been some studies in Australia that indicate that technology has had the effect of eroding the boundaries between people's work life and life outside of work,” Wright told Al Jazeera.
“This is a culture that has always characterised work in Australia. People may work standard hours, but when they leave the office each day, they are often still working.”
Wright also noted that despite long working hours, Australia has seen slow productivity growth over the past two decades, with economy-wide labour productivity falling by 3.7 per cent in 2022-23.
Wright said he hopes the right to disconnect law can boost Australia's productivity by prompting businesses to consider more efficient approaches to work.
“There are countries that tend to have shorter working hours, like France, with its 35-hour work week. That has been a bit criticised, but it has actually been a contributing factor to France having some pretty good productivity results,” Wright said.
“And I think that laws on the right to disconnect will help. [Australian companies] “Thinking more creatively about how to work smarter.”
Michele O'Neil, 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 is now a workers' right under law in Australia, and that's important because the simple principle that you should be paid for all the work you do should apply,” O'Neil told Al Jazeera.
Business lobby groups have expressed dismay at the law.
Bran Black, chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, said the issue of allowing employees to switch off outside the office should be addressed in the workplace rather than through legislation.
“The combined effect of the government’s new laws, including new definitions of casual employees and independent contractors, will increase bureaucracy and union power, while reducing productivity and hitting our economy at the worst possible time,” Black told Al Jazeera.
“Our labor laws should encourage more people to find work instead of creating more bureaucratic procedures to hire staff.”
The new law does not prevent employers from communicating with employees and bosses can argue that an employee's refusal to communicate is unreasonable, sparking a debate over whether employees will feel safe ignoring 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 that right for fear of receiving a “poor performance review” in her reviews.
Still, the law could lay the groundwork 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] “We hope this will stimulate debate about what constitutes reasonable and unreasonable contact outside of working hours,” Hopkins told Al Jazeera.
“This will encourage discussion about what kind of contact is happening and why it is happening. Why are employers contacting their employees outside of working hours? Is that essential? And hopefully it will lead to a reduction in that unnecessary contact,” he added.
“But most importantly, it gives the employee the right not to read or respond to it until he or she returns to work.”
