Greens to push for ‘right to disconnect’ in next wave of IR changes

Workers’ right to ignore calls or emails from their bosses after hours will be among the Greens’ key demands when the federal government begins its next wave of workplace reforms.

Greens leader Adam Bandt said the party, which last month negotiated changes to Labor’s Secure Jobs, Better Pay bill in return for its support, would use its numbers in the Senate to pursue a “right to disconnect” in Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke’s second industrial relations package slated for 2023.

Greens leader Adam Bandt says the party will use its leverage in the Senate to pursue a “right to disconnect”.Credit: Jason South

The policy – a workplace right in France and Germany – was one of the recommendations backed by Labor members of a Senate inquiry into the care economy in October, while Labor’s Tony Sheldon, one of the government’s loudest voices on industrial issues, is also a supporter.

Bandt said Australians were under increasing pressure to balance work and their caring responsibilities, “but also their life generally”.

“One of the big pressures is the requirement many employers have that people be available out of hours to check phones, respond to emails, answer text messages. It’s bleeding into people’s lives, and it’s time to stop,” he said.

Members of the Queensland Teachers’ Union recently voted in favour of an enterprise agreement incorporating a right not to answer calls or emails from parents or colleagues outside work hours and the National Tertiary Education Union sealed a similar deal for academic staff hired by the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

The Finance Sector Union is also negotiating over such a condition with Westpac and National Australia Bank in its new enterprise agreements.

Sheldon said during a press conference last month that the right to disconnect “should be part of the mix in the conversation” for legislation to come forward next year.

The Senate’s work and care committee, chaired by the Greens’ Barbara Pocock and including Labor’s Deborah O’Neill, Jana Stewart and Linda White, recommended in October the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations investigate ways to insert a right to disconnect into the Fair Work Act.

The committee found changes to work in recent years, with advances in technology, had led to “availability creep”, where employees felt they needed to be available all the time to answer emails, calls or deal with their workload.

Bandt said the opposition had dealt itself out of workplace law negotiations, and “the only pathway the government has through the Senate is working with the Greens”, which has 12 senators.

“There’s been some welcome movement at the bargaining level from people who have managed to negotiate a right to disconnect into their agreements. We want to see it become a national standard and enshrined in law so that everyone has the right ... to switch off when they finish work,” he said.

“We’ve seen over the course of this year already we’ve been able to get significant changes to the government’s industrial relations legislation, but also in other areas – to their electric cars bill and their climate bill – and I think that’s the approach that we’ll continue to take.”

He said the Greens’ preferred approach was to “improve and pass” the government’s workplace legislation, but it would “push the government to go further and faster in tackling insecure work”.

Bandt said the Greens also wanted to outlaw insecure work, saying there should be a presumption all work was ongoing to counter the insecurity faced by casuals.

The government has proposed to make job security an object of the Fair Work Act, Australia’s central workplace legislation.

Bandt said another policy it would pursue was “roster justice”, which would enable casual workers to have greater say, clarity and security over the scheduling of their work hours.

The Senate committee found that while shift work could provide some flexibility in the workplace for people balancing work and care responsibilities, “it can also reduce available work hours, create a highly unpredictable environment for employees and remove access to much-needed income”.

It recommended the law be changed to ensure rosters were “predictable, stable and focused on fixed shift scheduling” and that employers considered employees’ needs, including care duties, when changing rosters.

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