On Monday, hundreds of thousands of employees in Australia were granted the legal right to “switch off,” allowing them to disregard inappropriate contact from employers outside of working hours – to the chagrin of huge industry.
Employees can now refuse to observe, read or reply to their employers’ attempts to contact them outside of working hours – unless the refusal is deemed “unreasonable”.
The laws are much like those of some European and Latin American countries.
Unions welcomed the laws, saying it offered employees a option to regain a balance between work and personal life.
“Today is a historic day for working people,” said Michele O’Neil, president of the Australian Federation of Trade Unions.
“The trade union movement has ensured that Australians have the legal right to spend quality time with their loved ones without the stress of constantly having to answer inappropriate work calls and emails,” she said.
“Australian unions have reclaimed the right to get home after work.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed the reforms implemented by his centre-left Labor government.
“We want to make sure that people don’t have to work 24 hours a day, just as they don’t get paid 24 hours a day,” he told national broadcaster ABC.
“Honestly, it’s also a mental health issue when people can disconnect from their work and connect with their family and their lives.”
“Deeply confusing”
However, the reforms met with a cool response from Australian industry leaders.
“The ‘right to switch off’ laws are rushed, ill-conceived and deeply confusing,” the Australian Industry Group said in an announcement.
“At a minimum, employers and employees will now be uncertain whether they can take or make a call outside of working hours to offer an extra shift,” it said.
The law, passed in February, got here into force on Monday for medium and huge firms.
Smaller firms with fewer than 15 employees might be included from August 26, 2025.
“We encourage workplace stakeholders to educate themselves about the right to disconnect and to use common sense to apply it in their workplace,” said Anna Booth, head of Australia’s industrial relations regulator, Fair Work Ombudsman.
Under the law, a court could order employees to stop unreasonably refusing to be contacted outside of working hours, and employers may be ordered to stop unreasonably demanding that their employees respond, it said.
The query of what is acceptable will “depend on the circumstances,” the Fair Work Ombudsman said in an announcement.
Decisive aspects might be the rationale for contact, the character of the worker’s role and their compensation for additional time or availability, it said.
France introduced the correct to change off in 2017 to counteract the “always-on” culture encouraged by smartphones and other digital devices.
