New law gives Australians the right to ignore their bosses’ emails after hours

Australia’s new “right to disconnect” law allows employees to refuse work communications after hours.

Australia has joined the growing list of countries granting their workers a little more work-life balance.

A new “right to disconnect” law went into effect in the country on Monday. It allows most workers to ignore communications from their bosses sent after hours without fear of retaliation.

That means late-night emails and texts can wait until the next day.

“Before we had digital technology, there was no encroachment. People would go home at the end of a shift, and there would be no contact until they returned the following day,” John Hopkins, a Swinburne University of Technology professor, told Reuters.

While the law does not prohibit managers from contacting their employees after hours, it grants those employees the right to not respond under reasonable circumstances.

But there are certain instances where a worker’s refusal to reply can be considered unreasonable, for example, if the contact is required by law and in emergencies.

The law states that when deciding if an employee’s refusal is unreasonable, the employer must take into account factors including the reason for the contact, any compensation the employee receives to work outside their normal hours, the employee’s role and level of responsibility, and the employee’s personal circumstances like caregiving.

“If it was an emergency situation, of course, people would expect an employee to respond to something like that,” Senator Murray Watt, Australia’s minister for employment and workplace relations, said.

“But if it’s a run-of-the-mill thing,” Watt added, “Then they should wait till the next work day so that people can actually enjoy their private lives, enjoy time with their family and their friends, play sport or whatever they want to do after hours, without feeling like they’re chained to the desk at a time when they’re not actually being paid, because that’s just not fair.”

Australia — where workers churned out an average of 281 unpaid overtime hours in 2023, according to a recent survey — is just the latest country to adopt such a law.

In 2017, France pioneered the first “right to disconnect” law and around two dozen countries, primarily in Europe and Latin America, have followed suit since.

While the specifics of the laws vary from country to country, many of them were established under the premise that overwork is dangerous to health and safety, according to global business law firm DLA Piper.

For now, the Australian law only applies to medium and large businesses; the law goes into effect for small businesses employing fewer than 15 people next August.

But if you’re a US worker, you’ll probably be waiting a while for similar protections. A right to disconnect law was proposed in California earlier this year, but it was quickly shelved after criticism from business groups, NPR reported.