That Late-Night Text to Your Tradie? It's Now a Legal Risk.
The Right to Disconnect is now law for small businesses across Australia. For builders and tradies used to running crews informally, the way you manage contact outside work hours just changed.
Most construction businesses in Australia run on informal communication. A quick text to a subbie at 8pm about tomorrow's start time. A Sunday morning call about a delivery change. A group chat that never really stops. That's just how the building industry works, or at least how it used to.
Since 26 August 2025, employees of small business employers (those with fewer than 15 employees) have the legal right to refuse to monitor, read, or respond to contact outside their working hours, unless their refusal is unreasonable. That includes calls, texts, emails, and messages on any platform.
What the law actually means
The Fair Work Act now protects employees' right to be unreachable after hours. Your employees can legally refuse to read, monitor, or respond to contact outside their rostered hours, unless that refusal is unreasonable given the circumstances.
Unreasonable refusal considers the reason for the contact, how it was made, whether the employee is compensated for being on call, and the impact on the employee. Disputes go to the Fair Work Commission if they can't be resolved in the workplace.
Where the line gets drawn
- Texting a labourer at 9pm about tomorrow's start time, non-urgent scheduling that could have waited. The employee can legally ignore it.
- Genuine emergencies and safety issues are treated differently, but 'genuine' is the operative word.
For small and medium construction businesses, this isn't just a compliance tick-box, it's a genuine shift in how you manage your crew. If you haven't updated your processes, you're exposed.
