Academics and bank workers are pushing for the right to ignore calls and emails outside of hours to restore their work-life balance and mental health in a new battlefront opening up in the fight for better conditions.
The National Tertiary Education Union,calling for a 15 per cent pay rise for university staff over three years,and the Finance Sector Union,negotiating with Westpac and National Australia Bank for 6 per cent more pay,both want the right to log off out of hours locked into agreements.
NTEU national assistant secretary Gabe Gooding said all staff were routinely expected to respond to student and management inquiries outside of work hours,including on weekends.
“For the academic staff ... if they don’t respond to student inquiries on weekends,they can get a lower student satisfaction score that can impact their employment,particularly if they’re employed as casuals,” Gooding said.
“It impacts on your health,mental and physical,and relationships. It’s clearly a work health and safety hazard.”
FSU Victorian and Tasmanian secretary Nicole McPherson said the right to disconnect wasn’t about preventing managers from calling staff during emergencies,but to ensure staffers were not “on the clock all the time”.
“I think as the use of technology in our workers grew,there’s been an increasing expectation for us to be available all the time,” she said.
The move to ban bosses contacting workers after hours is opposed by the chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry,Andrew McKellar,who argues it “would not align with the needs of a modern 24-hour economy”.
Read more