Starting Monday, August 26, most Australians gained the “right to disconnect” from work after hours (and employees of small businesses will join them in August 2025).
According to Australia’s Fair Work Commission, the law “protects employees who refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact outside their working hours, unless their refusal is unreasonable.”
In an interview with ABC Australia, Senator Murray Watt expressed that modern technology is a double edged sword, and that constant accessibility should not equate to constant availability.
“It's really about trying to bring back some work-life balance and make sure that people aren't racking up hours of unpaid overtime for checking emails and responding to things at a time when they're not being paid,” said Watt, who serves as Australia's minister for employment and workplace relations.
When the law went into effect, Watt followed up his interview with a post on X (formerly known as Twitter).
“Someone who isn’t being paid 24 hours a day shouldn’t be penalized if they’re not available and online 24 hours a day,” he wrote.
Back in 2017, France became the first country to propose and enact such a law. French workers not only have the right to disconnect, but they also have “35-hour” work weeks.
Now Australia has joined a dozen countries — including Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Ukraine — in protecting workers from unpaid compensation.
And other countries — like Kenya, the Netherlands, and Denmark — are following suit by proposing similar laws.
Where does the US land on the right to disconnect?
In April 2024, California proposed a law that would protect employees from working outside of office hours, giving them the right to disconnect from “emails, text, and phone calls.”
The main tenets of the law included creating clearer separation between work life and personal life and giving employees protection from employer retaliation.
But the bill was struck down within a month.
Those who opposed the bill cited concerns about enforceability and the flexibility, especially for workers who need to be reached in the event of an emergency, like police officers, firefighters, and first responders.
The bill’s sponsor, California State Representative Matt Haney, pointed out that the bill required employers to have policies in place for specific lines of work.
“The policy could be a lot of on-call time with the employee, if that’s what the job dictates,” Haney told his colleagues.
Despite the bill getting killed, Haney gained support — and attention — from select committee members.
“American people live to work instead of work to live,” said fellow assemblymember Alex Lee. “Other nations have adopted [the law and] their economies haven’t collapsed.”
In the last year, Washington and New York City have also attempted to pass bills that grant the right to disconnect.
Both have fallen flat.
Alan King is the president and CEO of Workplace Options, a company that focuses on employee wellbeing. At the end of the day, King says that organizations — not states — will be pivotal in fighting for worker’s rights like the right to disconnect.
“We have so much changed into a society that never shuts off; we’re always connected,” King told Supply Chain Drive.
In the meantime, King hopes that employees find solidarity in setting boundaries with their bosses and coworkers on an individual level.
“Ultimately, you have a law that is about the culture of an organization,” he added. “If an employee feels like they’re going to be penalized for not doing something, that’s about that company’s culture.”
Overall, Haney has been surprised by how controversial the right to disconnect is in America. But he holds out hope that the United States might join Australia in time, when it comes to people clocking out — truly clocking out — once the work day comes to a close.
“Isn’t time with family among the most fundamental of American values?” Haney said in an interview with the LA Times. “This is a very conservative idea in many ways. You go home and you sit down with your family and your phone keeps pinging? That’s not the American dream.”
Header image via Beka Ichkiti / Pexels (Public Domain)
