Jane* was in labour when she received a call from work. Despite being on maternity leave and about to give birth, she answered.
“If you’ve got a day off and you get a phone call, you answer it. That’s the unspoken expectation,” she told 9news.com.au.
The calls and emails continued during her maternity leave in 2022, but if it happened today she’d have the legal right to ignore it.
EXPLAINED: How Australia’s new ‘right to disconnect’ rules apply to you
From Monday, August 26, new ‘right to disconnect’ laws come into effect, protecting the rights of Australians who work for businesses with 15 or more employees to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact from employers – unless that refusal is unreasonable.
Jane says the new protections couldn’t come sooner, especially for “vulnerable workers who are sometimes at the mercy of their workplaces”.
Have you got a story? Contact reporter Maddison Leach at mleach@nine.com.au
Australians work an average of 5.4 hours a week unpaid over time, according to data from the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work, and almost 90 percent report being contacted by their employer outside of work hours, per a survey from recruitment agency Robert Half.
For years, Jane felt the unspoken expectation to be ”on call 24/7″ while working in finance, even when she was on holidays or sick leave.
“Every time you hear that ping, it gives you anxiety,” she said.
When her son was born she “cried for weeks”, fearing the frequent out-of-hours contact would prevent her from being a present mother.
She grappled with “mum guilt” when she should have been enjoying the newborn phase and eventually concluded that something had to change – and it probably wasn’t going to be her workplace culture.
Jane looked for a new role where she would actually be able to ‘switch off’ after work. The job she landed only paid about half of what she’d been earning before.
Not everyone can afford to take such a “massive pay cut” just to escape out-of-hours contact in a cost of living crisis.
A staggering 3.7 million Aussie households have struggled to put food on the table in the last 12 months, per an AtWork Australia report.
If ‘right to disconnect’ laws had been in place when Jane had her child, she might not have had to choose between a healthy work-life balance and her income.
Employers found to be in violation of the new laws can be fined up to $18,000 but Jessica Heron, Employment and Industries Lawyer with Maurice Blackburn, warns “employers aren’t actually particularly scared”.
That’s because these new laws don’t prevent employers from contacting workers out-of-hours, it just gives employees the right to refuse that contact when ‘reasonable’. But who decides what is reasonable?
“What constitutes an unreasonable refusal will depend on the circumstances,” a spokesperson for The Fair Work Ombudsman confirmed to 9news.
Factors like the reason for the contact, how its made, the employee’s role and personal circumstances will be taken into consideration, but Heron worries these vague definitions could render the laws “toothless”.
Many Aussie workers have a ‘reasonable additional hours’ clause in their contracts that could override the new protections, and even if the don’t they could struggle to assert their new rights.
“I think [the protections] will be quite underutilised,” Heron told 9news.
Mary* works in media and told 9news she’d feel “uncomfortable” and would “struggle” to assert her right to disconnect with her employer, even though she’s part of a generation that’s already pushing back against excessive work contact.
Millennial and Gen Z workers are more comfortable ignoring work-related contact after hours than their older counterparts, per the Robert Hall study.
Mary agrees that many young Aussies feel “less of an obligation” to their employers after hours.
“We’re working, but it’s not a passion, and it’s not something that we would choose, necessarily, if we didn’t have to do it” she told 9news, adding that work is just a means to “sustain our lifestyle”.
Some critics have branded this approach as “lazy”, but Mary says it helps stave off burnout and negative mental health impacts from being overworked.
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Now workers of all ages can cash in on the benefits of switching off after clocking off.
More than nine in 10 anticipate positive change in their work and personal lives as a result of the new rules, which should encourage clearer work-life boundaries and balance.
Jane still struggles to switch off after decades of answering after-hours contact being “hardwired into” her and is excited to see workers – especially mothers – cash in on these new laws.
“It’s so much more than just being able to clock off and be lazy,” she said.
“It’s about making sure that we preserve our recreation time, because it’s so important for mental health and being an employee that can contribute the maximum at work.”
*Names changed.
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