Last updated 2 Sep 2024.
The Pastoral Award 2020 was varied from 26 August 2024. To provide conditions for employees to disconnect outside their normal working hours. This will apply to employees of Businesses with 15 or more employees from that date and to employees of Small Businesses (those with fewer than 15 employees) from 26 August 2025.
The right to disconnect protects employees who refuse to monitor, read or respond to contact or attempted contact outside their working hours, unless their refusal is unreasonable.
This includes contact, or attempted contact, from their employer, or another person, if the contact or attempted contact is work-related. Certain matters need to be considered when determining whether or not an employee’s refusal is unreasonable.
These include:
- the reason for the contact or attempted contact
- how the contact or attempted contact is made and the level of disruption it causes the employee
- the nature of the employee’s role and their level of responsibility
- the employee’s personal circumstances, including family or caring responsibilities
- whether the employee is compensated or paid extra for:
- remaining available to work when the contact or attempted contact is made, or
- working additional time outside of their ordinary hours of work. Other matters may also be considered.
At this point it is unclear how the provisions will be applied as this will depend upon how the Fair Work Commission interprets them. It has indicated that they will need to write guidelines about how the right to disconnect works and will be in a better position to make the guidelines after they have dealt with some disputes about how the right works.