‘Thanks, boss': Huge problem with new law
A string of messages from fed-up workers has revealed the sad reality of Australia’s ‘right to disconnect’ laws which came into force this week.
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Fed-up Aussies claim their bosses are already ignoring new ‘right to disconnect’ laws just days after they came into force.
On Monday, Australia gave millions of workers the legal right to ignore unreasonable out-of-hour calls, emails and texts from their bosses.
People can now refuse to monitor, read, or respond to their employers’ attempts to contact them outside work hours - unless that refusal is deemed “unreasonable”.
Unions welcomed the legislation, saying it gave workers a way to reclaim some work-life balance.
But in a thread of anonymous posts, shared by business gossip group The Aussie Corporate, workers revealed how their leaders were reacting to the changes.
“Was talking to an MD (managing director) at a well-regarded boutique IB (investment bank) in the street today and he said his firm was ignoring ‘right to disconnect’ despite their lawyer telling them they should do something about it,” wrote one worker.
“Had a team meeting yesterday at (a leading accounting firm) and the partner literally said I don’t think this applies to us! Ignorance is bliss,” added another.
“Had a very similar meeting to the anon person yesterday. ‘It applies to those with more regular hours’. Thanks, boss,” wrote a third.
The posts fuel fears the laws will do little to stop bosses from pressuring workers to operate outside of their regular hours, despite the threat of a $94,000 fine for companies caught flouting the rules.
“Railroad you out behind the scenes”
Shock jock Kyle Sandilands predicted bosses would find ways to punish workers who chose to pull back on working outside of their 9-5 grind.
“It doesn’t mean they (bosses) won’t railroad you out behind the scenes,” the KIISFM host, 53, said on Monday.
“Eventually they will find a way to get rid of you to work around the boundaries.”
“Everyone you can say, ‘oh by law, I don’t have to respond to that’ and they will then go, ‘no worries’,” he added.
“And then they get you for every little tiny infringement.
“You will go if they want you to go, one way or another. So, don’t abuse the system.”
Co-host Jackie O Henderson argued that “work hours are now infinity”.
“The thing is that work hours now are infinity. When you didn’t have email and mobile phones, you never got bothered outside of work hours,” she said.
“And nothing got done. It was the late 1970s. The world spun very slowly back then,” agreed Sandilands.
Backlash to ‘right to disconnect’ laws
Sky News host Sharri Markson slammed the new laws this week, claiming they marked a “dark return to a bygone era of nine-to-five office hours”.
“The Coalition and business council say these new laws are unnecessary and are a major productivity drain at a time when slow productivity growth is a factor in inflation remaining high,” Ms Markson said on Monday.
“It’s absurd government regulation in the business sector.
“The prime minister’s rules ... are a handbrake on the flexible working arrangements that all major companies globally are moving toward.”
The reform also got a cool welcome from Australia’s top industry body.
“The ‘right to disconnect’ laws are rushed, poorly thought out and deeply confusing,” the Australian Industry Group said in a statement.
“At the very least, employers and employees will now be uncertain about whether they can take or make a call out of hours to offer an extra shift,” it said.
The Business Council of Australia echoed those thoughts.
“These laws put Australia’s competitiveness at risk by adding more cost and complexity to the challenge of doing business, and that means less investment and fewer job opportunities,” said the group’s CEO Bran Black.
‘Commonsense’
The Australian law, enacted in February, came into force for medium-sized and large companies as of Monday.
Smaller firms with fewer than 15 employees will be covered from August 26, 2025.
The head of Australia’s workplace relations regulator, Fair Work Ombudsman Anna Booth, said people should take a “commonsense approach” to applying the new law.
Under the legislation, workers may be ordered by a tribunal to stop unreasonably refusing out-of-hours contact, and employers likewise may be ordered to stop unreasonably requiring employees to respond, the regulator said.
The question of what is reasonable will “depend on the circumstances”, the Fair Work Ombudsman said in a statement.
Deciding factors may include the reason for the contact, the nature of the employee’s role, and their compensation for working extra hours or being available, it said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hailed the reform, which was pushed through by his Labor government.
“We want to make sure that just as people don’t get paid 24 hours a day, they don’t have to work for 24 hours a day,” he told ABC.
“It’s a mental health issue, frankly, as well, for people to be able to disconnect from their work and connect with their family and their life.”
- With AFP
Originally published as ‘Thanks, boss': Huge problem with new law
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