Australia Passes New Law Granting Employees 'Right to Disconnect' After Work

TapTechNews August 26th news, according to Reuters, on the 26th (today) local time, Australia passed a new law granting company employees the right to disconnect, marking that the country's employees now have the right to ignore their bosses outside working hours.

The law stipulates that employers can still contact employees after work, but employees now have the right not to reply outside working hours unless the refusal is unreasonable. This means that employees can refuse to monitor, read or reply to contact information from employers or third parties (such as customers).

At the same time, Australia's Fair Work Commission (FWC) will determine whether the employee's refusal is reasonable and must take into account many factors such as the employee's role, the reason for the contact, and the way.

According to the Australian Industry Group, the FWC can order the company to stop contacting the employee, or prohibit the company from taking disciplinary action against the employee who refuses to contact. But if the employee's refusal is unreasonable, the FWC can also order the employee to respond to the employer, and if such an order is violated, it may result in a fine of up to A$19,000 (TapTechNews note: currently about 91,536 yuan) for the employee and a fine of up to A$94,000 (currently about 453,000 yuan) for the company.

France, Germany and other EU and Latin American countries have already implemented similar laws giving employees the right to turn off devices after work. According to The Daily Telegraph, in 2018, a French court ordered the Rentokil Initial company to pay €60,000 (currently about 477,000 yuan) because the company required an employee to keep the phone on at all times in case of emergencies, violating the employee's right to disconnect.

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Australia will legislate to allow company employees to 'disconnect' from employers after work and not be punished by the company