Ignoring calls, texts and emails from your boss after hours could become a legal right under a proposed amendment to fair work laws. The 'right to disconnect' draft legislation will be up for debate in parliament next week with the amendment drawing sharp criticism from business groups.
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00:00 I think this is a solution to a problem that very rarely exists and there hasn't been a
00:07 lot of evidence that this does exist on any sort of widespread or consistent scale.
00:14 So that's the issue here.
00:16 We're just trying to address a problem that doesn't really exist.
00:21 Workplaces are a lot about give and take and employers understand that they have to work
00:28 with their employees as well.
00:29 But think of some scenarios under this, what is proposed, if your dog's at the vet and
00:35 is ill, then it would be improper or almost illegal for another vet to contact the vet
00:42 who was looking after your dog during the day to check on an issue.
00:48 If you need to tell your kid's teacher that they're sick in the morning and just drop
00:53 them an email, that's not allowed either.
00:55 I understand and have listened to both sides of this argument looking at those practicalities.
01:00 There could be carve-outs within this new legislation that's up to debate to allow for
01:05 different time zones, different industries.
01:08 I think what's being called for is just a more reasonable approach because whilst you
01:13 said it doesn't happen often, nevertheless it still happens.
01:17 I think the numbers are there's up to, on average, seven weeks of time that is donated
01:23 to Aussie workers.
01:24 So don't those ones need to be made provisions for?
01:28 Well, Kath, as I said, when somebody is being made to work unreasonably, totally unreasonably
01:35 and not being paid for it, that is something that should be taken up.
01:38 The whole question is reasonableness here.
01:41 I was talking on radio this week with Sally McManus, the Secretary of the ACTU, and we
01:47 basically came to the same conclusion.
01:50 We've got to have a balance here and the problem here, Kath, is that we haven't had any conversations
01:56 or consultations around what it looks like, what does balance look like.
02:00 We've got to be real, we've got to be practical and our issue is that this has come out pretty
02:06 much from nowhere and we haven't had a chance to have a look at it and work it through properly.
02:10 And business employers would be deeply, deeply disappointed if this was picked up as part
02:16 of other changes to the Fair Work Act next week without any consultation whatsoever.
02:22 So if consultation ensues, where would you find level of comfort if there were amendments
02:27 to this?
02:28 What would be reasonable if there were changes and if a right to disconnect legislation was
02:33 to be amended into that Fair Work Act from 2009?
02:37 Well, Kath, I think first has to take into account that there are already provisions
02:43 within existing awards around this issue and there are already remedies that are in place.
02:53 The issue then is what would be reasonable, what is reasonable?
02:57 And in law, that's always the difficult thing.
03:00 And then we'd have to look at carve-outs, what sort of carve-outs there'd be.
03:03 This can't all be settled within potentially five days until this legislation is possibly
03:10 passed.
03:11 That's just a ridiculous time frame.
03:13 It's going to take time to work it out.
03:15 I think employers understand, and I'll reiterate, when people are not being paid for significant
03:22 work out of hours, that's a problem and that shouldn't happen.
03:26 But where do we strike the balance here?
03:28 Does an employee just have a right when the fire alarm's going off at work and they've
03:31 got the code to not answer the phone?
03:34 You know, those sort of issues, we just have to work it through.
03:37 So it's about balance and we haven't really had a proper conversation about it.
03:41 [BLANK_AUDIO]