"The ACTU call for all employees to be given a new right to make a request to work from home that could only be refused on limited grounds is an entirely unreasonable and unrealistic recipe for disputation," Brent Ferguson, Head of national workplace relations policy for the national employer association Ai Group said today.
"Our workplace laws already afford employees facing a range of different circumstances the right to request flexible working arrangements, including working from home arrangements. These rights have recently been strengthened through changes introduced by the current Government. To seek that they now be further expanded is clearly an unjustifiable over-reach.
“More broadly, employers should generally be able to make decisions about how, and indeed where the work that they have engaged people to undertake is performed. There are a myriad of reasons why employers might want employees to attend their workplace. They shouldn’t be faced with the prospect of these decisions being the subject of costly litigation in the Fair Work Commission.
“Of course, many employers are willing to accommodate working from home arrangements where they can, but the reality is this won’t work for many organisations or indeed for many types of roles,” Mr Ferguson said.
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