Shifting workplace practices for the digital age
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 129 No 2, 28 March 2024, page 13.
Unionists will always fight for the right of workers to lead a fulfilling life outside of work, and that includes ample time for rest, leisure, and spending time with loved ones.
The right-to-disconnect is a condition that balances the reality of many modern workplaces and responds to the needs of workers.
In the QTU’s 2018 Teacher Workload Survey, more than 50 per cent of teacher and head of program participants indicated that reducing their digital communication load would help to manage workload. Throughout 2020, QTU members continued to list email overload as a source of excessive workload. Finally, in 2022, QTU members won the right-to-disconnect through EB10 negotiations.
Under clause 9.5 of the Department of Education State School Teachers Certified Agreement 2022, employees are not required to respond to work-related emails, phone calls, or other communications outside of rostered duty time. This is intended to help address the issue of “digital presenteeism,” which leaves teachers and school leaders feeling compelled to constantly check and respond to work-related communications, even outside of their normal working hours.
Last year, QTU TAFE members accepted a TAFE EB offer that included a new clause which is now clause 56 of the TAFE Queensland Educators Certified Agreement 2023, the right-to-disconnect. The clause, which is in four parts:
- recognises the benefits of technology
- acknowledges that greater accessibility has the potential to adversely impact upon work-life balance
- contains a commitment that TAFE will minimise digital communication outside of operating hours
- prompts managers to encourage educators to disconnect from technology when accessing rest time.
In 2023, QTU members employed as vocational educators at Central Queensland University also concluded negotiations for a new enterprise agreement. These members are covered by the Fair Work jurisdiction, so recent Commonwealth Government amendments to the Fair Work Act means they finally have right-to-disconnect protections as well. The new Commonwealth right-to-disconnect provisions bring employers covered by Fair Work into the 21st century and recognise a right that already exists in many countries in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America.