Australian Employees Granted ‘Right To Disconnect’ After Work Hours And Ignore Their Bosses

The Australian workforce can ignore their boss after business hours thanks to the new 'right to disconnect' rule.

The Australian workforce is receiving some relief thanks to the new “right to disconnect” rule that went into effect on Aug. 26.

The new law allows employees to completely “disconnect” after working hours and ignore emails and calls from their boss or superiors without fear of being punished, BBC reports. The law, which passed in February, is a response to a 2023 survey that estimated that Australians worked on average 281 hours of unpaid overtime annually.

While the law does not ban employers from contacting their staff after normal business hours, it does give the staffer the right not to reply unless their refusal is deemed unreasonable. The new rule encourages workers and managers to work out disputes among themselves before contacting Australia’s Fair Work Commission (FWC) to step in.

If the FWC intervenes, it can call for the employer to stop contacting its employee after working hours. If an employee’s refusal to respond is found to be unreasonable, the FWC can order them to reply. Non-compliance with FWC orders can lead to fines of up to A$19,000 ($12,897 or £9,762) for an employee, and up to A$94,000 for a company.

“It’s really about trying to bring back some work-life balance and make sure that people aren’t racking up hours of unpaid overtime for checking emails and responding to things at a time when they’re not being paid,” Sen. Murray Watt, Australia’s minister for employment and workplace relations, said.

However, there are some opposed to the law like Australian opposition leader Peter Dutton, who signed a pledge to repeal the “right to disconnect” if his coalition wins the next federal election in 2025. Dutton slammed the new rule as damaging to relations between employers and employees and deemed it a threat to productivity.

The Business Council of Australia agreed with Dutton and labeled the new law as a “risk holding Australia’s historically low productivity back even further at a time when the economy is already stalling.”

“These laws put Australia’s competitiveness at risk by adding more cost and complexity to the challenge of doing business, and that means less investment and fewer job opportunities,” Bran Black, the Business Council’s chief executive said.

With the new “right to disconnect” law in effect, Australia joins more than 20 countries, primarily in Europe and Latin America, with similar rules. The law won’t apply to small businesses of fewer than 15 people until August 2025.