Earlier this year, the Federal Parliament passed laws to create a new workplace right: the right to disconnect. On Monday, those laws came into force.

The change came about because lawmakers recognised that technological developments, such as laptops and mobile phones, which allow many employees to work remotely, also allow the workplace to encroach into people’s lives outside of work. This phenomenon was turbocharged during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when workers across the country were directed to work from home using their digital devices, sometimes for months on end.

Employers have increasingly expected their workers to be contactable at all hours to respond to calls, emails, and sometimes return to work. While this is nothing new for nurses, midwives and carers, the legislation acknowledges the psychosocial hazards posed to worker wellbeing by not placing fair boundaries between work and personal time.

This is a massive win for union members, particularly in the health and aged care sectors, where the need to recover and recharge between shifts has never been more important.

These laws will only apply to workers covered by the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). For ANMF members, this will broadly include:

• all employees in the ACT, the NT and Victoria; and
• in all other jurisdictions, all employees in the private sector
  
  

The right to disconnect laws offer a new way to push back against bosses who do not respect their workers’ downtime. The law does not forbid an employer from attempting to contact a worker, but instead outlines when it might be reasonable for that worker to not respond. The following will likely be considered:

• the reason for the employer attempting contact,
• how the contact is made and whether it is disruptive to the worker,
• whether the worker is getting paid extra to be contactable,
• the nature of the worker’s job and whether they are a senior employee,
• the worker’s personal circumstances, such as family or other caring responsibilities,
  
  

It is easy to imagine how this could play out in the workplace:

Christine is a registered midwife in a private hospital. When she gets more than one consecutive day off, she likes to go camping in the outback, often to areas without phone reception. Christine’s manager is not aware that Christine has gone camping and messages her to see if she can come in to work to cover unplanned sick leave. The text message is not seen by Christine until she gets back from her trip. In this situation, it was probably reasonable for Christine to have refused contact from her manager.

Vanessa is an emergency department registered nurse at a public hospital. Vanessa has a day where she is not working, but is being paid an allowance to remain on-call and be prepared to be recalled to work if necessary. Vanessa notices her manager is trying to call her, presumably to ask her to come in to work. Vanessa decides to ignore the call until the next morning. In this situation, it was probably unreasonable for Vanessa to ignore the call from her manager.

Nick is a personal care worker in an aged care facility. On weekdays, his shift ends at 3pm so he can go pick up his kids from school. One day at 4pm, Nick’s manager is preparing the upcoming rosters for the Christmas and new year period and wants to know whether Nick will be applying for leave. Nick ignores the call because he is busy with his children. His manager wants to get the roster sorted that afternoon so repeatedly calls Nick and leaves some angry voice messages. This is not the first time the manager has called Nick after he has left for the day to discuss something non-urgent. In this situation, it was probably reasonable for Nick to have ignored the calls.

Frida is a nurse co-ordinator at a private health clinic, and is provided with a laptop to monitor emails out of hours. Frida works full-time and is not paid any additional amount for this work, but her salary is intended to cover additional responsibility. In this situation, Frida could reasonably refuse to respond where email demand is excessive or timeframes are unreasonable.

As these scenarios illustrate, circumstances where an employee can reasonably disconnect from work will vary. The ANMF recommends starting conversations about how the right will work in practice at your workplace and contacting your ANMF branch with any questions or concerns about the new right to disconnect.