For a great many, their job is their vocation. It’s not just what they do for a living, it’s a key part of defining who they are as a person.
These people love what they do and, if the need is there, willingly work over and above their standard working days to ensure that a task or project is completed on time and done well. They take pride in their work and, when a client or customer is happy with the service given, they take deep satisfaction in that. They feel validated not just as workers, but as people. They live to work.
Australian unions are delighted with the potential for inflating wages
There is, however, another large segment of the working population. They turn up because they have to earn a pay cheque somewhere. They do what is necessary to fulfil their job description – if that – but as soon as the working day ends, they’re out of there. There have better things to do with their time and, whether they are at home with their families, out enjoying the night, indulging in their hobbies or just wanting time to themselves, for these people their job is just a means to an end, to be put aside when the shop and the store put the lock on the door.
They work to live.
When it comes to the workforce as a whole, however, it’s the work to live group who are the target of the trend of the burgeoning ‘right to switch off’ movement, the regulation of after-hours availability by governments. The right to switch off means that if your employer, boss or colleague contacts you after-hours about a work matter, you have the right to put the phone on silent or ignore the email until the next working day commences, and not feel compelled to put in unpaid overtime to deal with the matter, or even answer a simple question.
‘Right to switch off’ kicked off in France in 2017 with legislation penalising employers for unreasonable intrusions into an employee’s after-hours life. It has spread across the European Union as either legislation or voluntary codes of conduct. And this week Australia’s right to switch off legislation began operating, having been pressed by the Australian Greens as a trade-off for other pro-union workplace measures enacted by the Labor government of prime minister Anthony Albanese.
When the legislation passed the Greens’ leader, a diminutive hard-left populist named Adam Bandt, summed up the political justification for the measure, saying ‘Whether you’re a nurse, teacher, or [hospitality] worker, the Greens believe you shouldn’t have to answer calls or texts from your boss on your day off or after hours if you’re not being paid for it.’
The legislation itself does not prescribe what is ‘reasonable’ after-hours contact with an employee nor, so far, has the Australian Fair Work Commission as the quasi-judicial umpire of workplace disputes.
But how will it work in practice? A ‘live to work’ employee may not only be happy to deal with an urgent work matter, but might even feel disappointed or offended if they are not sought out. A ‘work to live’ staff member, on the other hand, would be angry and resent the intrusion, however reasonable it may be.
But it’s clear the Australian tests of reasonableness will be determined by the latter group, not the former. Likewise, Australian unions are delighted with the potential for inflating wages. There will inevitably be spurious claims for paid overtime and on-call allowances for people who may almost never be on-call, either because the role doesn’t justify it, or because the boss knows that contacting a work to live employee is a waste of time.
That most employers and workplace bosses are not Simon Legrees from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and would only contact an employee after-hours if they absolutely have to has, of course, been ignored altogether by the Greens and the left-wing think tanks which developed the Australian legislation. To them, business is capitalism, and capitalism is rapaciously evil.
Wartime convoys used to be forced to sail at the speed of the slowest ship. When it comes to enshrining rights to switch off, the work to live employees are that ship in the productivity convoy. They’re not interested in loyalty to their employer or working harder as long as their pay cheque comes in.
Australia’s opposition leader, Peter Dutton, has promised to scrap this legislation if elected, rightly arguing it’s both a brake on improving productivity and a slander on the overwhelming majority of good and considerate employers.
Still, where Australia goes others may follow. The right to switch off was promised by deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and Labour in opposition, and some US states including California are considering it. Labour has promised sweeping workplace legislative reform in its first 100 days. For now, Labour appears to be favouring a voluntary employer code of conduct as applies in Ireland and Belgium.
Still, the British government is apparently concerned that allowing for too many exceptions to the right to disconnect will render it meaningless. A voluntary code is better than French or Australian-style legislative compulsion, but the starting point is the same: employers can’t be trusted, and all employees need government protection.
In taking on employers, however, there is one right to disconnect that Labour also could enforce for the common good: workers checking their phones, scrolling social media, surfing the internet, and doing their private business on their employer’s time. Somehow, I don’t see that happening though.
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