00:01Most working Australians have already had the right to disconnect for about a year now.
00:07The laws under the Fair Work Act came into force last August
00:11and have applied to all employees from medium and large business organisations.
00:16But from today those laws will be expanded to cover all Australian small businesses
00:21with fewer than 15 employees.
00:24According to the Fair Work Commission these rules allow employees
00:27to refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact from their employer
00:33unless the refusal is unreasonable.
00:36So the laws don't make it illegal for an employer to contact a worker outside working hours
00:41but rather they give employees a right to simply refuse to respond.
00:46Now when working out whether an employee's refusal is unreasonable
00:50factors such as the reason for the contact, how the contact is made,
00:54how much the employee is being compensated or paid extra for
00:58and the employee's role in the business must be considered.
01:01The Fair Work Ombudsman encourages employers and employees to discuss out of hours contact
01:06and set expectations that suit the workplace and the employee's role.
01:11And they say it's beneficial to have these conversations
01:13before out of hours contact happens where possible.
01:17As to whether these rules have made any real changes for larger businesses
01:21since they were applied about a year ago still remains to be seen.
01:25That's because they're still relatively new and there haven't been any real disputes about them.
01:30But no doubt these changes will present new challenges
01:33for the more than 2.5 million small businesses across the country
01:37which will now have to recognise a right to disconnect.
01:40The Fair Work Ombudsman has a right to connect.
01:43The Fair Work Ombudsman has a right to connect.
Comments