Australia gave millions of workers the legal right to “disconnect” on Monday, allowing them to ignore unreasonable out-of-hours 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.
“Today is a historic day for working people,” said Michele O’Neil, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions.
“Australian unions have reclaimed the right to knock off after work,” she said.
In the streets of Sydney, people appeared to welcome the change.
The law is similar to those of some European and Latin American countries.
Research indicates that the right to disconnect benefits employees said University of Sydney associate professor Chris Wright.
More than 70 percent of workers in European Union companies with a right to disconnect policy considered its impact to be positive, according to a November 2023 study by the EU work-related agency Eurofound.
