Factbox – The facts on Australia’s new ‘right to disconnect’ law for employees By Reuters

By Alasdair Pal

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian employees now have the right to ignore their bosses outside of work thanks to a new law enshrining the “right to disconnect”.

Here are the key facts about the law, which went into effect on Monday:

WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?

Employers will still be able to contact their workers, however staff will now have the right not to respond outside working hours, unless the refusal is unreasonable.

This means that an employee can refuse to monitor, read or respond to contacts from an employer or a third party such as a customer.

It will be up to Australia’s industrial arbiter, the Fair Work Commission (FWC), to decide whether a refusal is unreasonable or not. In this regard, it must take into account factors such as the role of the employee, the reason for the contact and the way it is carried out.

WHAT ARE THE PENALTIES?

Employers and employees must first try to resolve workplace disputes. If this fails, the FWC may intervene.

The FWC can order a company to stop contacting an employee or prevent them from taking disciplinary action against workers who refuse contact, according to the Australian Industry Group.

However, it can also order an employee to respond to an employer in cases where the employer’s refusal is unreasonable.

Breaching such an order could result in fines of up to $19,000 ($12,764) for an employee or up to $94,000 for a company.

WHAT WAS THE ANSWER?

The law has been welcomed by unions and rights groups, who say new rights for workers are overdue.

But it has drawn criticism from employers who say the legislation is flawed and was quickly passed into law. They say it could hurt productivity.

DO OTHER COUNTRIES HAVE SIMILAR LAWS?

Similar laws giving employees the right to turn off their devices are already in place in France, Germany and other countries in the European Union and Latin America.

In 2018, Rentokil Initial was ordered to pay €60,000 by a French court for breaching an employee’s “right” to disconnect from work after requiring them to keep their phone on at all times in case of an emergency, according to The Telegraph.

($1 = 1.4885 Australian dollars)