Nine in 10 women responding to a major CPSU survey say it is "very important" to be able to work from home and those who do are more likely to be satisfied with their work-life balance, while the ACTU says Coalition plans to force public servants back to the office if it wins government will hurt productivity and women's job opportunities.
Qantas short haul pilots have voted up a deal expected to boost incomes by more than 25% over five years by fundamentally changing how they are remunerated, while the Albanese Government has approved Qatar Airlines taking a 25% stake in Virgin.
The FWC has overruled an employer's resistance to a working parent's request to work an extra day a fortnight at home to care for his toddler daughter until she reaches two years of age, while rejecting its claims that it would set a precedent for the remainder of its workforce.
A charity's HR manager engaged in "a blatant exercise in deception" to orchestrate the sacking of a senior manager wrongly accused of serious misconduct, a court has found.
In rare flexibility orders won by an ANMF organiser who moved 500km from the office after experiencing domestic violence, the FWC has temporarily blocked the union from requiring her to work more than three nights per fortnight away from home and directed it to count travel time as work time between certain hours for the first half of the school year.
Qantas will pay $120 million into a fund to compensate about 1800 former ground handling workers for economic and non-economic loss they suffered as a result of the airline's unlawful outsourcing their jobs during the pandemic, though it is not yet clear how much each individual might receive or how this is to be determined.
A leading IR barrister says few employers are equipped to deal with the "huge sleeper issue" posed by the rise of working from home, as it becomes increasingly difficult to order employees to return, but he does not believe more legislation is the answer.
JobKeeper-like wage subsidies should be part of a government's "toolkit" for future pandemics, but "blanket" early access to superannuation should be taken off the table, according to the independent inquiry into Australia's response to COVID-19.
Amazon will require its corporate employees across the globe, including in Australia, to return to the office five days a week from early next year to strengthen the company's culture, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
The FWC's bid to develop an award clause removing impediments to working from home looks to be a slow burn, with a hearing likely next June following a possible employee survey.
