I took work calls when I was in labor. Why every country needs Australia’s new right to disconnect law

In August, Australia become the latest of a handful of countries that have adopted laws to effectively codify work-life balance. The “right to disconnect” law, which passed in February, empowers Australian workers to decline calls or ignore emails from their bosses outside of work hours. While it does not explicitly bar employers from reaching out—unlike a similar law in France—the law does protect workers who “refuse to monitor, read, or respond to contact or attempted contact outside their working hours, unless their refusal is unreasonable,” according to Australia’s workplace tribunal.

Since the law took effect last month, business leaders like Shark Tank‘s Kevin O’Leary have denounced it as “crazy.” (O’Leary even claimed he would simply fire workers who refused to respond after hours.) But the law does not entirely absolve workers, making exceptions for situations that are true emergencies or require urgent attention.

It’s also a response to surveys that indicate work-life balance has suffered in recent years, following the pandemic and the rise of remote work: In 2022, the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute, a public policy think tank, found that seven in 10 employees were doing work outside of business hours.

In industries where there are few boundaries around work, however, the law could help introduce a semblance of work-life balance, or at least a sense of control for workers. One Australian finance worker, who asked to remain anonymous to protect her job, talked to Fast Company about her previous job, which required her to work at least 12 hours a day and to be on-call at practically all hours—including while she was pregnant, and then on maternity leave. This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

‘I fielded a couple of phone calls on the day I was in labor’

When I was working at my previous workplace, it was for a large finance company. Even during pregnancy, I was working very long hours just to be able to deliver what I needed to, and getting phone calls from clients or my bosses at all times of the day.

I developed this almost anxiousness that I would miss something really important, or there would be something falling apart. So even when I took time off, I didn’t actually take time off. I was always on my phone, checking my emails, answering calls. Even at my later stages of pregnancy, some days I would miss lunch, and my first meal of the day would be at 9 p.m. It’s not because I consciously did that. But you sit there, and you’re just so overwhelmed with the amount of things and the expectations. You don’t want that phone call later saying, “Has this been done?”

There’s just a lot of unspoken expectations and pressure that drives people like me to work the way that we do. In fact, I fielded a couple of phone calls on the day I was in labor. I wasn’t in labor in the traditional sense. I had an epidural, so I didn’t really feel much, but also I was induced—so it was a very long process to get to the point where the baby was nearly there. And another silly thing is I brought my phone with me.

But it’s because of this hardwired thing in me that if I don’t bring it, I miss something important; if they call me, I’ve got to answer. I just couldn’t help myself because of that anxiety. It’s almost like a trauma response. In the first couple of weeks of maternity leave, as well, I was also taking calls.

‘You learn to just do whatever you have to do’

A lot of my early years within the finance industry, I was working in a very high-paced area where you’re working for a group of people that you had to look after, and they were quite high maintenance. I recall one particular thing that seems to have stuck with me. It was a Friday at about 4 p.m., and my boss handed me an application that needed to be worked on. And he said, this is really urgent. We need to get it done . . . by 9 a.m. on Monday. I don’t care how it gets done. You learn to just do whatever you have to do. And then eventually they don’t even have to say that to you. It’s just this expectation that it gets done ASAP.

Among my friends who don’t work in finance, they knew me as a workaholic. It’s not something that I aimed to be. It just was the nature of the job. And for too long, I accepted it as the norm.

I was on maternity leave, and it was nearing the time that I was supposed to go back to work. The closer it got, the more anxious I got. I was really emotional and upset, and [thinking]: Do I want to go back to what I know the workplace was like, where my time wasn’t my own?

‘I took a significant pay cut’

There was never an acknowledgement of the fact that perhaps the role was a lot more than what a standard person could do. So I decided that I needed to look for something new—just to be able to be present when I got home from work and not be exhausted, on the phone, constantly checking my emails when I’m supposed to be spending quality time with my son. That was the biggest concern for me, not being there for him in his formative years. 

Now I’m working in a role where I can work at home four days a week, which is really great. It’s encouraged that we work the hours that we are meant to, and outside of that, our time is our own. It’s actually frowned upon to work outside of those hours. I’m still in finance—a smaller finance company that has a lot more focus on that healthy balance.

I got paid really, really well at my last job. To move to this role, I took a significant pay cut. With the cost of living increasing constantly, it’s been quite difficult. We’re okay, but it’s hard. We’ve chosen not to have a second child because financially, if I want to be able to have the time that I want with my children, I cannot have both. I cannot have a lower-paying job and time with more than one child. So, we’ve decided to just have one, because it’s just not financially feasible.

‘This law will . . . embolden the few who are willing to stand up and be the example’

I think [the right to disconnect law] is a good start. I don’t think it’s enough to plug the holes and to encourage change for these large workplaces, at the end of the day. And regardless of what a workplace might come out and say publicly, it’s really up to the middle management to actually live by the same values. Also, it’s really hard with unconscious bias, if you aren’t on call all the time—versus someone who has the opportunity to do that because they’re young, single, and don’t have other care responsibilities.

This law will at least embolden the few who are willing to stand up and be the example. It’ll also really help with unions, for example, to be able to say: An injustice has been done here. Over time, if we continue pushing this and unions use this to make a more robust law that really holds workplaces accountable, hopefully that will [help] people like me who are faced with these decisions—so we’re not having to decide between a decent-paying job that we worked really hard to get to and family time. I sincerely hope that when my child starts to work and starts considering these things in his life, that he’s not faced with the same decisions that I had to make.