00:00A lot of these workplace changes, not much will change from today, Monday, to tomorrow,
00:06Tuesday.
00:07But over time, we're going to see this as an important point where we essentially had
00:10a bit of an inflection from the COVID level of availability, where people were essentially
00:16always on, to trimming it in as it has occurred in almost 25 countries around the world.
00:21So this right to disconnect gives employees, at most Australian businesses, the right to
00:26reasonably refuse contact from their employer or from a third party after hours.
00:32Now this is calls or texts or a desire to monitor email, things like that.
00:37If they can reasonably refuse to do so, they'll be able to, they'll be protected in doing
00:41that.
00:42Now employers and employees of smaller businesses, they will get the same right in exactly one
00:48year from today.
00:49Now this is a really big change.
00:52It means a lot, but there's still a lot to be worked out.
00:55I spoke to the secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the ACTU, Sally
00:59McManus, about her impressions of what this will mean for Australian workers.
01:05Employers will still be able to contact people after hours.
01:07You will have a right to not have to constantly monitor your phone and to do so.
01:12If you've been paid to do so, well obviously you'll need to.
01:16If you're a high paid worker, you still will need to.
01:20If you get paid things like overtime, you'll still need to.
01:24You can't be expected to work for free and actually that's just a very basic concept.
01:29It's not a new concept.
01:30This is just reinforcing that right for workers.
01:34So what can employees do if their employers don't abide by these rules, Dan?
01:40Well that's where there's a lot to go.
01:41This legislation is very thin and the first line of it is essentially if there are disputes,
01:45they're to be worked out at a workplace level first before they go to the Fair Work Commission,
01:49which is a kind of tribunal for employment.
01:52Interestingly, I covered this about three or four years ago when the Victoria Police won this right.
01:56They described it as being like the 90s again.
02:00Essentially they would clock off and outside of emergencies or a welfare check from their boss,
02:05they essentially, their time was their own.
02:07What we've seen is the flexibility of laptops, email, mobile phones has gone both ways.
02:12It's been great for employees but it's probably been even greater for employers
02:17who have, through behaviours and through ways that works are set up,
02:21really expanded the hours of their employees without paying for them.
02:25So this doesn't mean that your boss cannot call you
02:28but what it does build is starts to create those guardrails around what are the new norms for contact,
02:34allowing people to have time off so that they can be more refreshed and, for companies, better workers.
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