Australia has introduced new rules granting employees the ‘right to disconnect’ after work hours and a labour advocate believes that could reignite the conversation in Canada.
The new rules essentially give workers the right to not reply to work messages and calls after hours.
Alyse Stuart says the right to disconnect conversation began in Canada in 2019, and were later heightened by the pandemic.
Recommendations about the implementation of such rules came out in 2022, but Stuart says no action has been taken on them yet.
As Stuart explains there are concerns about the effect on a person’s mental health and quality of life if they cannot disconnect from work. She says it used to be that people had to leave their work at the office, but technology now allows people to carry their work in their pockets through smart phones, as well as other devices such as laptops. She says recent studies suggest people are doing 250 hours plus of unpaid work.