ACTU secretary Sally McManus has warned about unintended consequences of embedding working from home into enterprise agreements, something she said could risk leaving women in the workplace further behind.
“You wouldn’t want to have a situation, and workers don’t want it either, where you don’t have any face-to-face contact ... We’ve found that there’s limits to Zoom meetings, Microsoft Teams,” she told ABC RN Breakfast.McManus warned a push to embed working from home also risked embedding current inequalities where women were expected to do their jobs while taking on the bulk of childcare.
“We don’t want that situation because that’s just going to embed all of the inequalities we’ve currently got. McManus said the solution couldn’t be one size fits all, and noted unions had already negotiated with major employers arrangements where, for example, everyone was in the office on a certain day, with more flexibility during the remainder of the week.