'Who dreams this crap up, is my question?' says Shark Tank star
TV personality and well-known investor Kevin O'Leary has slammed as "dumb" the recently passed right to disconnect law in Australia.
"This kind of stuff just makes me crazy. It's so dumb," O'Leary said in a recent interview with Fox News. "Who dreams this crap up is my question and why would anybody propose such a stupid idea?"
O’Leary is a Canadian-Irish businessman who has appeared regularly as an investor on Shark Tank and Dragons’ Den.
In his remarks, O'Leary also questioned the application of the law during an "emergency" situation for organisations.
"What happens if you have an event in the office and it's closed?" he asked. "Or you have an emergency somewhere and you have to get a hold of them at 2:00 in the morning because it affects the job they're working on and their mandate in the organisation?"
Australia's right to disconnect law, which took effect in late August, empowers employees to refuse out-of-hours contact from their employers and clients unless that refusal is unreasonable.
Legislators said the passing of the law will help protect employees' mental health and improve work-life balance by allowing them to refuse 24/7 contact from their organisation.
But for O'Leary, being put on silent by his employee would jeopardise their job: "The next moment is — I just fire them."
Business opposition to right to disconnect
O'Leary's remarks reflect the business-wide opposition against Australia's right to disconnect due to the "uncertainty" that it introduced.
The Ai Group previously called out the law as "rushed, poorly thought out, and deeply confusing."
"At the very least, employers and employees will now be uncertain about whether they can take or make a call out of hours to offer an extra shift," said Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox in a statement.
Businesses also had concerns about what constitutes as "unreasonable" in the legislation.
"There's a lot of uncertainty. Until we see some of those claims emerging and until we see some cases coming forward in the commission or in the courts, then really, it's going to be up to them," said Andrew McKellar, chief executive officer of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in a previous statement.
Workplace Relations Minister Murray Watt previously said figuring out what is "reasonable" in the workplace will be between employers and employees.
"The best thing that can be done is for employers and workers to have a conversation about the nature of their workplace," he said. "What would be a reasonable thing for employers to be contacting people about after hours, and what wouldn't be?"
