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The Labor Government’s Closing the Loopholes Bill is the latest blow to reality and the business economy, but its “ right to disconnect” will no doubt be welcomed by some workers and the legal profession. It’s the latest brainchild of Employment and Industrial Relations Minister Tony Burke and his boss, PM Anthony Albanese, to appease their all-powerful union patrons.
As economist Judith Sloan commented recently in The Spectator, “Gone is the emphasis on an open and competitive economy where workers and bosses work out win-win solutions, it’s now open class warfare and wealth redistribution. But the “disconnect” element comes from an amendment by the loopy Greens, accepted by Labor and supported in the Senate by equally-loopy non-independent Teals, plus Independents David Pocock and Lidia Thorpe. It threatens huge fines for employers who dare to contact workers outside normal business hours, with employees able to raise formal complaints about “intrusive” phone calls and/or the expectation they answer work emails out-of-hours. If the issue is not resolved at the workplace level, employees can apply to the Fair Work Commission for an order to stop unreasonable out-of-hours contact.
Wouldn’t it be simpler for a worker just to ignore an email from the boss or not answer the phone unless the terms of their employment required them to be “on call”?
Journalists possibly come under this category, but as a young reporter I remember being tracked down by my editor at a dinner party with my wife at a friend’s house on a Sunday evening and told to get my arse back to the office pronto to finish a report on the local government elections held that weekend. It didn’t matter that I had only been rostered on duty on the Saturday and had left an up-to-date report on the close of counting late that night for the rostered Sunday reporter to follow up. The editor was a godlike figure, his commands and queries to be obeyed and answered at all costs at any time of his choosing. And all this, remember, was long before penalty rates for journos were a thing.
Taking another trip in the mind’s Tardis back to those heady days, I wonder how today’s young journalists would cope with the following situation. Maybe it would be a legitimate case for the Fair Works Commission:
OUR little fibro beach cottage at Bargara shook in gale force winds, rain belted against the windows and branches whipped past as Sunday morning dawned.
It was late January, 1966, and Category 4 Tropical Cyclone Dinah was moving down the Queensland coast, causing havoc from the tropical north down to Fraser Island, near Bundaberg. My pregnant young wife looked at me and shook her head.
“You’re not going to work today, John. It’s too dangerous out there…”
Obviously, she was right. But as usual, I was rostered on for Sunday reporting rounds at the Bundaberg News-Mail.
“Don’t worry, I’ll phone the editor and see if he can get another reporter living in town to work today. That shouldn’t be too hard”. I tried to sound confident, but that’s not how I felt. Cathy looked reassured. Surely he wouldn’t expect anyone to drive over waterlogged roads in these conditions would he?
One slight problem, we didn’t have a phone but there was a public phone booth not far away outside the Post Office. I ventured out to make the call, but I needn’t have bothered.
“Hello Mr H, it’s John here. I just wanted to let you know it’s blowing a gale down here at Bargara, and I don’t want to leave my wife alone . Could you get another reporter to cover for me today?”
A pause at the other end then, “No, it’s too late for that and the damage this blow is causing throughout the district must be covered. You’re a reporter – just get yourself into town and do your duty”.
Do my duty? Does he think I’m in the Army or something? Risk my life, but not for God and country – just a bloody newspaper?
What if I refused point-blank? I’d probably be looking for another new career, and I couldn’t risk that with a modest mortgage and a pregnant wife to look after.
Once again, the omnipotence of God the Editor was paramount. He wasn’t about to change his plans or commandments for a mere junior reporter.
One thing was certain – I wasn’t about to leave Cathy home alone, and she wasn’t about to let me drive into town on my own, so the two of us set out on the slow drive to Rum City. Cane fields were flattened and power lines were down along the way. Wind gusts buffeted our VW sideways and water ran across the road.
“If it’s flooded, forget it,” was a slogan still decades away, but somehow we made it unscathed and I dropped Cathy off at her parents home in North Bundaberg before reporting for duty as ordered.
Obviously all sports had been cancelled that weekend, so the God Editor condescended to assign Geoff, the rostered sports reporter, to assist me in covering the cyclone. We both made numerous calls to police, emergency services and private residents throughout the district and wrote our reports of damaged homes, wrecked businesses, power cuts and flooded farms before finishing up around 10.30 pm. God was pleased; He said we had done a good job. Then I had to pick Cathy up and drive back to Bargara, but by then the worst of the blow was over. Cyclone Dinah had started to veer away from the coast toward Lord Howe Island, leaving a trail of havoc in her wake.
We approached our little cottage in a blacked-out street with trepidation. Had it survived? Surprisingly, yes, but another much more substantial high-blocked house a few doors down the street had lost its roof.
God moves in mysterious ways and the next day dawned bright and clear. I was on a rostered day off, all seemed good with the world again. Like the Beatles, I believe in yesterday, but put it down to experience. I made a silent pledge – if ever I rose to the ranks of editor, I would not ask what mine had of any reporter.
It’s not that he was intentionally cruel, and the fact is that I respected him in many ways, but he never let empathy stand in the way of a single-minded focus to provide our readers with what they needed to know. As a reporter, despite my misgivings about venturing out in a cyclone, I see at this distance of years that he expected me to take my professional responsibilities as seriously as he did.
John Mikkelsen is a former editor of three Queensland regional newspapers, columnist, freelancer and author of the Amazon Books memoir, Don’t Call Me Nev
This is wrong. Australians fought hard for the 40 hour work week and Labor is right to protect it. In other countries workers often leave only after the boss does. Unpaid overtime sure but at least the emails don’t intrude on the family time – the one they literally don’t have.
The Liberals are backing an unpopular and irrational policy with this one.
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“Wouldn’t it be simpler for a worker just to ignore an email from the boss or not answer the phone unless the terms of their employment required them to be “on call”?”
You would have to be seriously born yesterday to write this.
So, Paul, what was the original threat of a prison sentence all about? ♂️♂️♂️♂️♂️
Talk about a Fascist Police State.
This is just Labor’s same old “obsessive state control of people lives” mindset.
Labor cannot have heard of message bank/ emails.
Dumber than
What about obsessive corporate and business control?
It’s not “obsessive state control of people’s lives”, it is protecting the people lives outside of work hours. That’s the whole point of the 40 hour work week. Businesses can’t force you to work outside those hours.
You clearly have no idea what’s going on corporations at this moment. People are getting fired for not answering some trivial email at 1 o’clock in the morning. Message banks? What decade are you in? Bosses now expect workers to answer messages phone calls and emails at every hour of everyday long after they have left the workplace. Not acceptable. Home is for home life, the workplace is for work.
Corporation bosses who want to turn modern Australia into the 18th century should absolutely go to prison.
The ability to be contacted anywhere comes with the freedom to work anywhere.
Suits me fine.
Following the publicity on the right to disconnect, after hearing undercurrents in the workplace, I suspect at our staff meeting this week, business employs less than 15, employees will reject change to job description so they will be required to take shift related calls from manager after hours. Not that there are many, we get more, ‘not coming in for my shift today’ than the other way round. Fallback position will be No private phone calls allowed while on duty. Will see how this plays out as out staff appeared to be addicted to their phones in reference to serving customers.
These are great times to be retired from an increasingly dysfunctional work place.
It’s a difficult one but it’s hardly unfair to expect someone to do his duty in a crisis. Your editor was in the right, especially in 1966 when the local newspaper was a vital news source and we still had a pretence of being a serious country.
Having grown up on a farm, worked for years in a remote rural school in PNG, and spent the remainder of my working life as an officer in the RAAF, I agree absolutely with David Isaac. To me it’s fundamental that people who are permanently employed should understand that their jobs depend on the welfare of the business in which they are employed.
However, there has always been a subset of people who believe that they owe their allegiance to the trade unions, and their bastard child the ALP, than they do to the people who actually put their food on their tables and the clothes on their children’s backs.
Nobody is owed a job, and anyone who thinks otherwise is pretty much unemployable. If it takes the refusal of an emergency callout to identify such a person, then that should be prima facie lawful grounds for dismissal.
Of course it is reasonable in the case of exigencies. The problem apparently now is that some employers have taken to contacting employees in circumstances for normal (but always intrusive) matters.
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If that is the case then it is to be expected that there would be a reaction.
Frankly, I welcome the change, although I believe the actual wording is not so severe as to fine employers for reasonable communications. John, you would be wise to remember that previous generations enjoyed the same employer/occupation for the vast majority of their lives. Today, short term contracts reign, and two years is considered a long time in any one job. John, you were also on call as a news reporter in an emergency. I agree with David Isaac that your editor was in the right, especially in 1966. No one in their right mind would be surprised that an on-call news reporter was expected to cover breaking news. Same, same with on-call medics. But the vast majority of workers for whom this bill is applicable work corporate office jobs. In that sphere, I see a huge disconnect between the older generations who are still working and the younger generations, and their attitudes to work and career. In my experience, the older generations think there is something noble about being the last to leave, doing “all nighters”, and being seen to be the most over-burdened and hard working. In my office, there is something of a competition between the older employees about who has the honour of leaving last and switching off the lights. These workers will be in the office until 7-8pm at night, and often times much later than that. Their kids are grown and flown, they own comfortable properties nearby the office (where younger staff cannot afford to even rent), and they appear to have little interest in things outside of work. They also poorly manage their time, working late on something they should have started earlier, or asking younger staff members to have meetings with them outside hours – simply because that’s when they finally turned their attention to the issue! Meanwhile, the younger generations have small children, “side hustles” to make ends meet, and/or rent at a long commute distance from the office. Gone are the days where there’s a wife at home taking care of the kids! Yes, many of us are waking up to the fact that feminism has given us a terrible deal – where once a family could get by on one income, now they need two. But the average worker is powerless to reverse this situation. The younger generations arrive on time, start working right away, manage their time well, just to ensure they can get out the door and pick up their child / start their second job for the day / commute 2 hours and somehow also manage to sleep before getting up tomorrow and doing it all over again. Meanwhile, the managers and bosses swan in late, waste the day having a chat, and don’t begin real work until their younger employees are packing to leave. Then, thanks to the omnipresence of phones and computers, they’re calling/messaging/ emailing/and otherwise conducting what should have been their 9-5 work between the hours of 5-12, and expect the younger staff member to keep up with what would actually be a double shift. Yes, my generation want to clock off on time, and not be expected to work outside of hours if the job does not call for it, but we’re more than happy to compromise and hit the ground running at 9am.
This will all work out in the wash. When the old vanguard retires, that way of working will go with them. It’s a faster, more tightly managed world out there, and there’s no sense in one employer thinking they own any given employee, especially when they have three jobs. Should the world change and a job be more or less for life, with a sole income that can support an entire family, then I will be happy to chat to my boss at midnight.
All of that well said subrosa except for your last sentence. Even in those circumstances, except in genuine emergencies, an employee would be entitled to their own time.
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I respectfully suggest that at your workplace now might be a good time for the slaves to join the union and put a stop to those practices or alternatively claim overtime.