Four weeks ahead of employees winning a legislated right to disconnect, public service employers have been told they will need to train HR professionals and managers about the interaction of the new entitlement with general protections laws and consider updating job descriptions to ensure they "accurately reflect" expectations about after-hours contact.
The FWC has warned employers against giving "generic and blanket HR answers" when they provide their "reasonable business grounds" for knocking back flexibility requests, before ultimately rejecting a bid from a worker with challenging caring responsibilities to continue working entirely from home.
Victoria Police rejected a crime scene officer's request for a flexible work arrangement on reasonable business grounds, the FWC has held, while urging the parties to embrace a "better than nothing" compromise.
Employers say they are approving most flexible hours and work from home requests, according to a FWC-commissioned modern awards review survey that suggests the tribunal might explore entrenching a right to fully flexible arrangements for work that can be performed remotely.
A "broad coalition" of unions will call at this week's ACTU Congress in Adelaide for the peak group to press the Albanese Labor Government to legislate next year to insert 10 days reproductive health leave into the NES, according to key affiliate the Queensland Council of Unions.
The ACTU is calling for flexible work arrangement requests to extend to reproductive health issues, ahead of consideration of the issue at next week's triennial Congress in Adelaide.
The FWC is inviting submissions by June 11 on a "right to disconnect" audit of all 155 modern awards focusing on terms involving spans of hours, notice, supervisory duties, and requirements to remain on call, on standby or return to duty.
A bank manager has failed to establish that his employer lacked reasonable business grounds for refusing his request to work solely from home to aid his injured yoga instructor partner's recovery as she conducted 15 high-intensity lessons per week.
The SDA has strongly defended its tying of bargained pay rises to the FWC's annual safety net rises, pointing to inflation-beating increases over the past seven years enjoyed by 100,000 Coles workers, as voting opens today on the retailer's proposed four-year deal in the face of a RAFFWU campaign to reject it.
The FWC is seeking feedback by March 12 on the possible incorporation into modern awards of key recommendations of the recent Senate work and care inquiry, including rights to work from home and to disconnect from the workplace.
