Employers and unions have confirmed the gulf that exists over 'right to disconnect' laws that come into force today, the former lamenting a lack of FWC guidance on "reasonable" contact and forecasting "conflict and disharmony", while the latter hailed the new provisions as "reclaiming the right to knock off".
The ACTU is recommending the FWC include more "practical detail" in its draft "right to disconnect" award term, to "spell out" what the Commission will consider when it determines whether or not a refusal is unreasonable and is also proposing a review in 12 months.
The proposed "right to disconnect" modern award clause is "mostly suitable", but should clarify that the entitlement is a "workplace right" within the meaning of the Fair Work Act's general protections provisions and specify the dispute resolution procedure to follow, an employment and contract law academic says.
Four weeks ahead of employees winning a legislated right to disconnect, public service employers have been told they will need to train HR professionals and managers about the interaction of the new entitlement with general protections laws and consider updating job descriptions to ensure they "accurately reflect" expectations about after-hours contact.
The FWC is inviting submissions by June 11 on a "right to disconnect" audit of all 155 modern awards focusing on terms involving spans of hours, notice, supervisory duties, and requirements to remain on call, on standby or return to duty.
A court has hit a former Indian High Commissioner with maximum fines for entrapping a worker in "powerless domestic servitude" in the guise of a diplomatic posting, paying her $9 daily to keep his palatial Canberra home 17.5 hours a day, seven days a week.
A labour law expert has told a Senate inquiry he supports the Albanese Government's Bill to remove criminal sanctions from right to disconnect laws but he believes there should be a new requirement for all agreements to contain a disconnection rights term.
The FWC has identified 11 award provisions, extending to overtime, reasonable additional hours and on-call, that might interact with new terms to entrench the right to disconnect, ahead of the new laws taking effect in late August.
A FWC full bench has granted the TWU an intractable bargaining declaration at a second Cleanaway site, in Wollongong, ahead of a hearing to consider a determination for the waste giant's Erskine Park site in April.
Closing Loopholes 2 provisions that substantially increase penalties for breaching the Fair Work Act should prompt employers to consider boosting their investment in payroll systems and checking compliance, Adelaide University Professor of Law Andrew Stewart says.
