Employers would only face fines for contacting workers out of hours in egregious circumstances, the employment minister suggests as consultation continues on the right to disconnect.
Tony Burke is continuing discussions with business groups to ensure a balance is struck, as momentum grows for laws allowing workers to switch off and ignore work calls and emails out of hours.
One concept being discussed is that instead of fining employers making contact, employees could go to the Fair Work Commission for a stop order if things get out of hand and they are expected to do unpaid work.
Fines would be applied if the stop order was breached, Mr Burke said.
"That's a sort of concept that's been being talked about, it's a pretty light touch, but it also establishes a principle that just says ... you're meant to be paid when you're working," he told Sky News on Sunday.
But a balance was needed because there being times when it would be reasonable for a boss to contact a worker, he said.
"It's completely reasonable for any employer if they've got a shift that hasn't been filled, to do a ring-around to see if someone can do a shift," he said.
"We've got to make sure we don't create a problem."
While some employees are paid allowances to cover incidental overtime, the laws would aim to tackle unreasonable unpaid hours, the minister said.
"When someone is only paid, be it nine to five or nine to three or ... whatever their hours might be, and that's all they're being paid, is it reasonable for them also to be expected to be regularly working outside of those hours without pay?" he said.
"If it's not reasonable, then what on earth can they easily do about it to be able to get it to stop?"
Greens leader Adam Bandt said the party was having good discussions with the government about potential models.
"It's critical that law keeps up with technology and it just hasn't at the moment," he said.
"Too many people are under enormous amount of stress and there's a lot of unreasonable contact that happens for people that makes it hard to have good time with your family or to just recharge for work the next day."
The Australian Industry Group is calling for more scrutiny, saying some work agreements already contained provisions for contacting employees after hours, reflecting the needs of particular sectors.
"This is a solution to a problem that very rarely exists and there hasn't been a lot of evidence that this does exist on any sort of widespread or consistent scale," chief executive Innes Willox told ABC TV.
"Workplaces are a lot about give and take and employers understand that they have to work with their employees as well.
"The issue then is, what would be reasonable? And in law, that's always the difficult thing."
