The FWC has taken the initiative of releasing a draft award schedule addressing working-from-home arrangements, describing it as conversation-starter that recognises the need to adapt to COVID-19 realities.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus will tonight use a "robo-call" to about 500,000 lower and middle-income households to explain the union movement's aims heading into the first of the Morrison Government's IR change discussions tomorrow.
The ASU says it will object to extending a coronavirus-driven variation to the clerks' award because it has been "superseded" by JobKeeper and Fair Work Act changes, dismissing the employer bid as an attack on the award system.
In a case of curious timing, the FWC has endorsed a council's mid-pandemic scrapping of an enduring work-from-home arrangement on the basis it fell outside the purview of a flexible work agreement clause.
The union movement needs to build a "workers' claim" that lays out expectations and protections around working from home, according to ACTU secretary Sally McManus.
The IR system will need to change to deal with challenges arising from the COVID-19 "new normal" of working from home, according to a briefing paper by the Centre for Future Work.
