“A fair notice period is a critical protection that recognises the reality of people’s lives. For many people, particularly women, working from home is deeply integrated into how they manage their family and caring responsibilities.
“Suddenly removing that arrangement isn’t a simple change – it pulls a thread that can unravel a family’s entire routine.
"It means finding new after-school care where there are often long waiting lists, rearranging transport, or finding alternative support for an elderly parent.”
Big-name companies like Amazon, Woolworths, and Coles have told staff they have to return to the office after several years of WFH privileges.
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Some only have to come in a few days, while others now have to come back from Monday to Friday, as it was before the pandemic.
Gaske wants to prevent that latter circumstance from happening to people on the Clerks Award, as the union believes employers shouldn't be able to 'pull the rug out from under their employees'.
What is the union's submission for WFH rights?
The ASU has submitted its proposal to the FWC over how WFH rights should operate for the roughly 1.8 million workers on the Clerks Award.
But this is only available to workers who have been with their employer for at least 12 months and are pregnant, a parent, someone with a disability, over the age of 55, a carer, or someone experiencing domestic violence.
The ASU wants there to be a built-in presumption that when a staff member applies to work remotely, it will be approved.
The employer and employee would have to try to reach an agreement to accommodate the staff member's request, and if that can't be done, then the worker would need at least 26 weeks' notice before returning to the office.
This would also apply to employers seeking to vary or pause a worker's current WFH setup.
Why is this happening?
An ASU survey recently found a whopping 98 per cent of respondents felt WFH rights were important or extremely important to them.
A separate poll of nearly 8,500 Yahoo Finance readers discovered 59 per cent would leave their job if they couldn't work from home.
ASU national secretary Emeline Gaske said workers need to be given enough time to adjust to return-to-office mandates. (Source: AAP)
New research from Roy Morgan also found 46 per cent of employed Australians work from home at least some of the time, with that figure rising to 51 per cent for full-time workers.
The union said this should serve as a wake-up call for bosses that things have changed massively since 2019.
“Working from home is now a permanent feature of the modern Australian workplace, and our submission will make it clear that the location of work does not diminish its value,” Gaske said.
The Clerks Award covers roles such as administrative assistants, receptionists, and bookkeepers.
HR expert Lara Nercessian told Yahoo Financea lot is riding on the FWC investigation, as it could start a domino effect with other work contracts.
"A lot of businesses and organisations are going to be quite apprehensive in terms of the way that this unfolds," she said.
"After their significant efforts and attempts to get people back into the office full-time, I think a lot of organisations may see it as undoing the work that they've done."
But this also comes at a time when moves are being made to protect WFH rights for all workers in two Aussie states.
It's the first attempt at a state-wide mandate for public and private sector workers who could reasonably do their work from home.
The South Australian Greens are also preparing a bill that could grant public sector workers the right to work from home at least one day a week.
But state Premier, Peter Malinauskas, has already indicated the proposal won't go very far.
“To mandate things, I think, runs the risk of having unintended consequences,” he said.
“And occasionally I think employers should have the ability to say, ‘Look, we’re paying you to do a particular task and this is where I need you to perform those tasks.'"
