Digitisation has simplified the working and business operations, but has blurred professional and personal boundaries. With the increasing trend of emailing and texting employees after work, Australia has passed a bill that can put an employer behind the bars for simply calling an employee after hours.
The Australian Senate passed the bill, Right to Disconnect, last week so that employees have the right to refuse to monitor, read or respond from an employer outside of employee’s working hours unless the “refusal is unreasonable”.
There is a clause subject to exception in cases of emergencies, but the main purpose of the legislation is to exploit companies/ employers from exploiting their workers and demanding extra work without extra pay.
Does any other country have such a law?
Several European countries such as France and Belgium already have the legislation in place.
France was the first country to introduce Right to Disconnect in 2017, which forced the companies having more than 50 employees to discuss with the staff when they can ignore emails or phone calls.
Kenya, in Africa, is another country that is seeking to implement such a law.
German companies Volkswagen and Daimler have implemented policies to stop servers from sending emails to employees during off hours. In Sweden, an employee works for six hours a day compared to the world’s average of eight hours.
In India, Baramati MP Supriya Sule drafted the Right to Disconnect Bill, 2018, which was never taken up by Parliament for discussion.
The bill provides for flexibility in the right-to-disconnect rules and leaves it to the individual company to negotiate the terms of service with their employees. It seeks to respect the personal space of the employees by recognising their right to disconnect and not respond to their employer’s calls and emails during out-of-work hours. While the bill recognises the rights of the employees, it also takes into consideration the competitive needs of the companies and their diverse work cultures.
Criticism Against the Bill
The Business Council of Australia has criticised the bill on the ground of criminal sanctions, and said it was not thoroughly discussed before passage.
Australia’s opposition party has decided to repeal the law if elected in the 2025 national elections.
Andrew McKellar, chief executive officer of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told The Guardian that the amendment could impact women’s participation in the workforce. “This sort of heavy-handed legislation risks taking Australia back to a rigid working environment that is undesirable for parents, especially women,” McKellar said.
Australia’s union movement has welcomed the bill, and called it a major step towards post-Covid rebalancing, and claimed that many workers perform up to 280 hours per year of unpaid work.
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