{"id":75264,"date":"2025-08-18T10:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T10:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/75264\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T10:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T10:58:10","slug":"the-asu-is-pushing-for-presumed-work-from-home-heres-what-that-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/75264\/","title":{"rendered":"The ASU is pushing for presumed work from home. Here’s what that means"},"content":{"rendered":"

Working from home may become the presumed status of Australia’s white-collar workforce as part of a new push from the Australian Services Union (ASU).<\/p>\n

The ASU announced plans to submit the new clause to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) this week and has published the results of a new survey to support its plans.<\/p>\n

Here’s what you need to know:<\/p>\n

What is the ASU proposing?<\/p>\n

The ASU is proposing a new clause that will give clerical and administrative staff the presumed right to work from home if it is reasonably requested.<\/p>\n

If an employer and employee cannot come to an agreement, the employer would be required to give that employee 26 weeks’ notice before enforcing a return to the office.<\/p>\n

ASU Assistant National Secretary Emeline Gaske said a fair notice period was a critical protection that recognised the reality of people’s lives.<\/p>\n

\"Emeline<\/p>\n

Emeline Gaske says notice is needed before employers are made to return to the office.\u00a0 (AAP: James Ross)<\/p>\n

“For many people, particularly women, working from home is deeply integrated into how they manage their family and caring responsibilities,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Suddenly removing that arrangement isn’t a simple change \u2014 it pulls a thread that can unravel a family’s entire routine.<\/p>\n

“It means finding new after-school care where there are often long waiting lists, rearranging transport, or finding alternative support for an elderly parent.”<\/p>\n

Why is the ASU asking for this now?<\/p>\n

The FWC is working to develop a working from home term for the Clerks Award<\/a> that supports employers and employees making workable arrangements.<\/p>\n

More Aussie workers may have the right to work from home <\/a><\/p>\n

The Fair Work Commission is reviewing whether administrative workers should be included under an award that would give them the right to work from home.<\/p>\n

The ASU’s clause forms part of a submission to the Clerks Award review.<\/p>\n

The Clerks Award covers private sector staff whose primary duties are administrative or clerical.<\/p>\n

According to ABS data, about 1.8 million Australians are clerical and administrative employees, of which about three-quarters are women.<\/p>\n

About 91,000 are covered by the clerks’ award.<\/p>\n

The ASU represents a broad range of industries, including: local government, social and community services, transport, travel and airlines.<\/p>\n

They also represent clerical and admin staff in various industries in the private sector.<\/p>\n

What do union members say?<\/p>\n

A survey of 600 workers conducted by the ASU found:<\/p>\n

90 per cent work from home at least some of the time98 per cent consider working from home “extremely” or “very important”87 per cent would be “extremely” or “very concerned” if their employer had the ability to cancel overtime, remove breaks, penalty rates, or shorten rosters to as little as 30 minutes because you worked from home?<\/p>\n

One union member, IT software specialist Shaun Ruigrok, said working from home helped him to be more productive.<\/p>\n

\"Shaun<\/p>\n

Shaun Ruigrok says he is more productive working from home.\u00a0 (ABC News)<\/p>\n

He said that as a neurodiverse person, he was able to set up a working space that was not as overstimulating and exhausting as a work office environment.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t make sense to spend hours of my life travelling to and from an office to sit in front of a computer I can sit in front of at home,” he said.<\/p>\n

Ms Gaske said the people who have overwhelmingly taken up working from home are women, particularly those with care responsibilities.<\/p>\n

“If we were to cut those conditions, it would have a really negative impact on working women who are trying to manage their care and work responsibilities,” she said.<\/p>\n

What are they saying big business will take away?<\/p>\n

Ms Gaske said some big businesses were asking employees to give up penalties and overtime rates in exchange for working from home.<\/p>\n

“Over many, many years we’ve seen the big business lobby try and attack penalty rates and overtime pay at any opportunity they get,” Ms Gaske said.<\/p>\n

“I think this is just another attempt to whittle away some of these conditions.”<\/p>\n

What do businesses say?<\/p>\n

Australian Industry Group Chief Executive Innes Willox has described the proposal from the union as the “loopiest yet”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“The proposal is not only entirely unnecessary and unreasonable, it would inevitably operate to discourage employers from continuing to adopt an accommodating approach to employee requests to work from home,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He referred to an independent survey of employers and employees undertaken at the Fair Work Commission’s request, which found 94 per cent of employees who asked for working from home arrangements had their request approved or partly approved.<\/p>\n

\"Man<\/p>\n

Innes Willox has described the ASU’s proposal as ‘loopy’.\u00a0 (ABC News: Dan Fermer)<\/p>\n

“The Fair Work Act already gives employees the right to request flexible working arrangements, including working from home, in a range of circumstances,” Mr Willox said.<\/p>\n

“Employers can only reject these requests on reasonable business grounds.”<\/p>\n

He said the ASU’s proposal could force employers to refuse flexibility out of fear they would not be able to require a return to the office in a reasonable timeframe if the circumstances change or the arrangement is proving to be unworkable.<\/p>\n

“We want employers to be free to work with employees to structure their working hours in a way that suits them,” he said.<\/p>\n

“This isn’t about cutting existing entitlements, but it does need to be recognised that the current award terms aren’t fit for purpose.”What happens next?\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ASU said it would make its new submission on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Clerks Working From Home review will remain open for submissions until September 2 before entering the next stage.<\/p>\n

A hearing for further directions from the FWC will be held on September 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Working from home may become the presumed status of Australia’s white-collar workforce as part of a new push…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75265,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[38647,38651,84,38664,38649,38652,1371,56,54,55,36019],"class_list":{"0":"post-75264","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-asu","9":"tag-australian-services-union","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-clerks-award","12":"tag-emeline-gaske","13":"tag-fair-work-commission","14":"tag-jobs","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom","18":"tag-working-from-home"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75264","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75264"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75264\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}