How Australians are fighting for the right to work from home permanently

As corporate leaders call for an end to pandemic-era remote work arrangements, unions in Australia are setting a precedent and fighting back, taking to court the country’s biggest bank and wrangling with the federal government to demand work from home, to become the norm For many, working from home is wonderful. You can actually finish work at five, rather than finishing at five spending 45 minutes trying to get home.” As corporate leaders from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to Tesla and Twitter boss Elon Musk call for an end to pandemic-era remote work arrangements, unions in Australia are setting a precedent and fighting back, taking to court the country’s biggest bank and wrangling with the federal government to demand WFH, as it is known, to become the norm. “We’re always ahead of the pack in the English-speaking world, say compared to the UK, US, New Zealand.” Empowered by the lowest unemployment rate in half a century, staff at Commonwealth Bank of Australia took the $114 billion lenders to the industrial tribunal to challenge a directive to work from the office half of the time. “I don’t think we will see WFH levels going back to pre-pandemic levels.” Jim Stanford, director of the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute, a think tank, said individual union deals would not necessarily end the stalemate since employers would get more bargaining power if unemployment rose, a widely-expected by-product of rising interest rates.