Australians now have a right to disconnect from work. Will Canada follow?

The new rule, which came into force Monday, means Australian employees cannot be punished for refusing to read or respond to contact from their employers outside work hours.

Australian workers now have the legal right to ignore their bosses after work hours, as a new “right to disconnect” law has come into effect Down Under.

Some experts say Canada should hurry up on a proposal to follow suit.

The new rule, which came into force Monday, means employees cannot be punished for refusing to read or respond to contact from their employers outside work hours.

Supporters say the law gives workers the confidence to stand up against the steady invasion of their personal life by work emails, texts and calls, a trend that’s accelerated since the pandemic scrambled the division between home and work.

Australians worked on average 281 hours of unpaid overtime in 2023, according to a survey last year by the Australia Institute, which estimated the monetary value of the labour at A$130 billion (US$88.30 billion or C$118 billion).

The change adds Australia to a group of roughly two dozen countries, mostly in Europe and Latin America, with similar laws.

France pioneered rules in 2017 and a year later fined Rentokil Initial 60,000 euros ($67,250) for requiring an employee to always have his phone on.

Opeyemi Akanbi at the School of Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University said advancements in technology have outpaced labour protections in much of the world.