Statement from Innes Willox, Chief Executive, Australian Industry Group
Australian Industry Group welcomes today's decision of the Fair Work Commission to make the Clerks – Private Sector Award 2020 more flexible and adaptable to contemporary working arrangements.
This gives employers and employees greater ability to agree on arrangements that suit their circumstances, instead of requiring that they work in accordance with outdated and prescriptive rules around working hours that are blatantly out of step with practical realities of the way people want to work.
We are pleased that the Commission has largely adopted the approach advanced by Australian Industry Group in the Clerks – Working From Home case.
We argued that widespread working from home arrangements have developed which are consensual, mutually beneficial and inconsistent with the current provisions of the Clerks Award. The Commission has accepted this proposition.
The Commission rightly accepted that the relevant provisions of the Clerks Award were established in a different era, when workplace attendance and more highly supervised and regimented systems of work were the norm. Those provisions were not designed for the flexible working arrangements that are now commonplace.
Ultimately it rightly held that a new regulatory intervention is not required to compel employers to facilitate working from home in a wider range of circumstances.
