Technology has changed the way we work, and there’s no going back (no matter how much a small but noisy handful of employers might like to).
For many workers, it’s been a revolution which has freed them from the rigid confines of the nine-to-five workday.
With a smartphone in your pocket and Zoom calls at your disposal, why should you be expected to schlep into the office every day without exception?
Employers have for the most part accepted the new way of doing business, making remote, hybrid and flexible hour work arrangements more readily available than ever before.
But there is a flip side. If you can now work from anywhere and during hours that suit you, should you also be expected to be constantly available?
The answer of course is no. No one disputes that workers should be able to unwind and unplug.
Many employers are choosing to formalise that right, through workplace policies, or through clauses in EBAs giving workers the “right to disconnect”.
They recognise the benefits of doing so in order to prevent burnout and sending messages to both workers and managers about company values.
But there lies significant danger in writing that into law, as the Labor Government is doing through the second tranche of its Closing Loopholes Bill.
Thankfully, Labor has watered down its initial plan, which could have outright banned bosses from contacting staff after hours. That would have been completely unworkable, particularly for WA businesses at the mercy of customers or staff working on east coast time zones.
The new model doesn’t go that far. But it does give workers the right to ignore their bosses outside work hours if that contact was “unreasonable”.
Who decides whether that contact is “unreasonable”? The Fair Work Commission, which will have the power to issue a “stop order”, banning further after-hours contact. If the order is breached, the commission could then issue fines or other penalties.
By putting the right to disconnect into law, the Labor Government is trying to signal that they remain the party of the worker.
For most workplaces staffed with reasonable people, this won’t be a problem. Most workers don’t begrudge answering the occasional out of hours query and most employers respect their workers’ right to maintain a life outside the office.
In fact, the whole thing smacks of a solution in need of a problem. By putting the right to disconnect into law, the Labor Government is trying to signal that they remain the party of the worker.
The problem arises when you encounter workplaces — or unions — staffed with unreasonable people. Militant unions will seek to exploit these new provisions, forcing cases to the Fair Work Commission.
And that will mean that businesses’ only options are to pay staff on call allowances, or hire more staff to do not a great deal of work.
Those are costs which big business and governments may be able to bear. Small and medium businesses will not. And that will drag down Australia’s already ailing productivity.
That’s an outcome this Government should be doing everything it can to avoid.
Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by WAN Editor-in-Chief Anthony De Ceglie