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Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

reuters.com

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Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#41

Post by joshgermon »

nomilk wrote: post #29
joshgermon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you rely on exploiting the fact that your employee does not have the right to ignore your call outside of hours, your business shouldn't exist. What kind of take is this? It says it gives them the right to ignore, not to sue the business if they do call.

Employees benefit from calls out of hours. How? The employer is able to offer better service to customers, and make more money, and the employee can negotiate a higher salary from the more profitable business. Employees who are inflexible cannot offer the same level of service to their employer and its customers; they'll on-average be paid less and measures like this increase production costs, making goods and servic…

Yes, we know increased profits always go to the worker. Particularly when the business needs to rely on exploiting them to make those increased profits.

Let me try your logic here...

Employees benefit from no paid annual leave! How you ask? The employer is able to offer better service to customers, and make more money, and the employee can negotiate a higher salary from the more profitable business.

Am I doing this right? Workers give up more rights but in theory they can negotiate higher pay because the business is more profitable?

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#42

Post by lysp »

nomilk wrote: post #29
joshgermon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you rely on exploiting the fact that your employee does not have the right to ignore your call outside of hours, your business shouldn't exist. What kind of take is this? It says it gives them the right to ignore, not to sue the business if they do call.

Employees benefit from calls out of hours. How? The employer is able to offer better service to customers, and make more money, and the employee can negotiate a higher salary from the more profitable business. Employees who are inflexible cannot offer the same level of service to their employer and its customers; they'll on-average be paid less and measures like this increase production costs, making goods and servic…

> This law reduces the extent to which flexible employees can add (and extract, via hight salary!) value, and the extent to which customers receive timely service.

If you're paying someone to be on-call, this is not an issue.

This is about unpaid out-of-hours work.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#43

Post by cj »

Gustomaximus wrote: post #34

For emails, I generally feel these are a 24hr thing. I turn off email alerts so I can focus on my tasks then check a few times a day only. I used to filter CC emails into their own folder for reading maybe once a day which worked mostly well but occasionally people can't seem to use to/CC as they are supposed to. Calls I always try to pickup or callback asap but my job calls usually means urgent. Chat like Teams I'm…

Isn't what you're describing the difference between exempt and non-exempt employees? In the US, the protections you're describing exist if you make less than ~$60k. Above that amount and you're exempt from being entitled to overtime.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#44

Post by koyote »

nomilk wrote: post #29
joshgermon wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you rely on exploiting the fact that your employee does not have the right to ignore your call outside of hours, your business shouldn't exist. What kind of take is this? It says it gives them the right to ignore, not to sue the business if they do call.

Employees benefit from calls out of hours. How? The employer is able to offer better service to customers, and make more money, and the employee can negotiate a higher salary from the more profitable business. Employees who are inflexible cannot offer the same level of service to their employer and its customers; they'll on-average be paid less and measures like this increase production costs, making goods and servic…

> Employees benefit from calls out of hours. How? The employer is able to offer better service to customers, and make more money, and the employee can negotiate a higher salary from the more profitable business. Employees who are inflexible cannot offer the same level of service to their employer and its customers; they'll on-average be paid less and measures like this increase production costs, making goods and services slightly more expensive.

The business can put that into their contract so that a prospective employee can make a conscious decision:

For example, I have two offers, one for x% higher salary but the contract stipulates a requirement for me to be available after-hours between Xpm-Ypm on x days of the week, I can then make the decision whether the x% more money is worth the stress and the free time I have to give up.

That's how our business introduced on-call: it's opt-in and there is specific remuneration for being on call and for responding to an issue.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#45

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

selcuka wrote: post #11

> To cater for emergencies and jobs with irregular hours, the rule still allows employers to contact their workers, who can only refuse to respond where it is reasonable to do so. This clause pretty much invalidates the rest of the rule. Why should an employee need to justify their inability (or unwillingness) to respond? I can understand the "jobs with irregular hours", but otherwise shouldn't it be a best effort th…

It's just a very narrow rule. The government has an explainer on it (https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/hours-of-w...), and their example of after-hours contact which might be legitimate involves 3 hours of document preparation due the next morning.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#46

Post by nomilk »

joshgermon wrote: post #41
nomilk wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees benefit from calls out of hours. How? The employer is able to offer better service to customers, and make more money, and the employee can negotiate a higher salary from the more profitable business. Employees who are inflexible cannot offer the same level of service to their employer and its customers; they'll on-average be paid less and measures like this increase production costs, making goods and servic…

Yes, we know increased profits always go to the worker. Particularly when the business needs to rely on exploiting them to make those increased profits. Let me try your logic here... Employees benefit from no paid annual leave! How you ask? The employer is able to offer better service to customers, and make more money, and the employee can negotiate a higher salary from the more profitable business. Am I doing this r…

Start with a theoretical employee who offers no value and gets paid zero. Dial up their usefulness and consider what happens. The greater the value an employee offers, the stronger their negotiation power in pay discussions. It's not more complicated than that.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#47

Post by dopylitty »

Aurornis wrote: post #25
dopylitty wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only makes sense if emergencies are strictly defined. For instance "don't come to the office there's a bear inside" is an emergency. "the crud app you support fell over" is not an emergency. If the latter is an emergency to the company they should staff for 24/7 support, not rely on exploiting people during their off hours to provide free support.

> "the crud app you support fell over" is not an emergency. I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed to learn that situations impacting business-critical operations would be considered emergencies. The assumption that Australia just outlawed the concept of having an on-call rotation is not supported by the article. The article says requiring an employee to be on-call 24/7 for general purposes would indeed…

> But completely eliminating planned on-call rotations is not part of the goal.

It certainly should be. You want your app supported 24x7 then pay for three shifts.

If the government won’t make it a law then IT workers can make it a demand when they unionize.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#49

Post by StressedDev »

billybuckwheat wrote: post #3

I don't live or work in any of those places, but I've been ignoring work emails and calls after hours for a long time. Helps that 1) I don't have a work phone, 2) apps that my company uses on my personal phone, and 3) never log into the company network or services on my own laptop. In the few instances when I was called out about it, I asked Could the message/call have waited until the following morning/Monday? The a…

Same here. The fact is no one can be on call 24/7. People need downtime. I have never worked with a manager who demanded people be contactable at any time. I have been on call but that makes sense. Note that on a good team, being on call is easy because the service rarely goes down.

Re: Australian employees now have the right to ignore work emails, calls after hours

#50

Post by SturgeonsLaw »

nomilk wrote: post #37
ceejayoz wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If overnight service is that critical and profitable, hire a night shift.

But who really pays? The employer? Yes, at first , but the cost is passed straight on to consumers. Prices are sky high in Australia for this reason, businesses have many laws that each increase prices by a fraction of a percent - almost imperceptible - but cumulatively very noticeable.

Typical whinging Aussie business owner. You lot won't be happy until you turn us into another America, with at-will employment and healthcare tied to employment like a yoke around an ox.

You are neglecting to mention the power imbalance that exists between employees and employers. Like economists who view all actors as fully informed and rational market participants, your viewpoint is fantastic on paper, but in real life there are centuries of examples of ordinary workers getting exploited if regulations like these are not in place.

And hey, you might be one of the good bosses who will shrug and say "sure, no problem" if an employee wants to prioritise their life over their job. There are plenty who won't, and this law will help reign them in.

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