Australian employees now have the right to disconnect from work after hours

Australian employees can now ignore work emails and calls outside work hours thanks to a new “right to disconnect” law designed to promote work-life balance.

SYDNEY, Australia — Is your boss texting you on the weekend? Work email pinging long after you’ve left for home?

Employees in Australia can now ignore those and other intrusions into home life thanks to a new “right to disconnect” law designed to curb the creep of work emails and calls into personal lives.

The new rule, which came into force on Monday, means employees, in most cases, cannot be punished for refusing to read or respond to contacts from their employers outside work hours.

Supporters say the law gives workers the confidence to stand up against the steady invasion of their personal lives by work emails, texts and calls, a trend that has accelerated since the Covid-19 pandemic scrambled the division between home and work.

“Before we had digital technology there was no encroachment, people would go home at the end of a shift and there would be no contact until they returned the following day,” said John Hopkins, an associate professor at Swinburne University of Technology.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/australian-workers-right-to-disconnect-work-hours-rcna168158

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