A FWC full bench has rejected an employer's challenge to a finding that it must grant an employee's flexible work request, upholding a decision that reaffirms the precedence of NES provisions even when inconsistent with the terms of an enterprise agreement.
The proportion of employees working from home in 2023 has hardly eased since the COVID-19 lockdown, with 35% of workers doing some WFH and 15% performing most of their hours away from the office, according to the latest HILDA report.
The FWC has refused to reduce a worker's redundancy payout because the role the employer offered, after outsourcing the company's HR functions, would have paid less and required her to work in the office an additional day each week, despite the informality of her WFH arrangement.
A leading employment and IR barrister says the four-day working week, working from home and the right to disconnect are part of an unavoidable reorganisation of working hours that is set to become "the big issue of our time".
A worker failed to provide evidence that demonstrated that she sought a compressed work week to care for her partner and grandson, and that those needs related to her age, the FWC has found, ruling her flexible work arrangement request invalid.
The FWC has found the ATO failed to respect the ASU's role as the representative of a legally blind worker called into a meeting to discuss a request the union made on his behalf for a 100% WFH flexibility arrangement, to avoid the need to take public transport.
A model working from home clause in a key award should avoid contributing to remote workers working "long and unsociable hours", address employer provision of equipment and apply to all employees, according to a Centre for Future Work report.
Labor senators have sided with the Coalition to vote down a Greens amendment to the Albanese Government's penalty rates legislation that would require employers to consider requests to work from home for up to two days a week, "if practical".
Employers and unions are urging the FWC in its self-initiated test case to insert WFH provisions in the clerks award, but are starkly divided on whether workers should have a right to request, while academics back extending it to all – with protections – to boost equity.
The Greens will use their balance of power in the Senate to seek to amend the Fair Work Act to give workers the right to work at least two days a week from home if it is "practical and reasonable", echoing Victoria's recent policy proposal.
