Penalty rates and BREAKS could be on the chopping block under new work from home rules

•  Employer group wants to take away entitlements for WFH staff

By STEPHEN JOHNSON, ECONOMICS REPORTER FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Published: 23:51 BST, 16 June 2025 | Updated: 07:31 BST, 17 June 2025

Professionals working from home could be denied the right to take breaks or be paid penalty rates if an employer group had its way.

The Australian Industry Group, which represents 60,000 businesses employing a million workers, has asked the Fair Work Commission for permission to take away entitlements in exchange for allowing WFH privileges.

The employer group had proposed adding flexibility arrangements to the existing clerks award, covering administrative support staff, after the industrial umpire last year started a review into awards.

Daily Mail Australia understands the AI Group had suggested allowing staff to work back later, without getting overtime, if they needed to pick up their children from school or attend appointments during designated WFH hours.

‘It would be highly inappropriate for any party to comment on or otherwise disclose the content of discussions or developments that have occurred in the context of those proceedings,’ an AI Group spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia.

‘To do so would be a clear and deliberate breach of faith.’

But AI Group chief executive Innes Willox argued the existing clerks award was too rigid.

‘The reality is that in many respects, the award is completely out of step with the realities of both current working practices and the desired level of flexibility that many employees want in order to help them balance their work and personal commitments,’ he said.

Professionals working from home could be denied the right to take breaks or be paid penalty rates for weekends and public holidays if an employer group had its way

Australian Services Union national secretary Emeline Gaske hit back, accusing the AI Group of using work from home arrangements as a cover to strip away entitlements.

‘Even discussing the idea of employers refusing to pay overtime, remove penalty rates, eliminate breaks, and roster staff for as little as 30 minutes a day, all because someone works from home, is an outrage,’ she said.

‘To try and axe basic workplace rights just because people are working from home is completely out of step with modern workplaces and community attitudes.

‘This is a “rights and cash grab”, plain and simple. This is big business coming into people’s homes and taking their hard-earned pay and right to reasonable hours work.’

Mr Willox argued the Australian Industry Group supported work from home, after former Liberal leader Peter Dutton lost the election with an aborted plan to force Canberra-based public servants back into the office.

‘The last election demonstrated the importance people place on working from home, and we know that accommodating this, when they can, is also important to many employers,’ Mr Willox said.

‘Sadly, some in the union movement seem determined to cling to the notoriously complex web of outdated workplace laws instead of constructively and cooperatively exploring how regulation of working arrangements can be genuinely modernised in a way that is both fair and flexible for all parties.’

A little more than a third or 36 per cent of Australians are now working from home with Covid lockdowns normalising the practice.  

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox argued the existing clerks award was too rigid

Former workplace relations minister Tony Burke initiated a review into awards and since last year, the AI Group, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Australian Services Union and the Australian Council of Trade Unions have been discussing the clerks award with the Fair Work Commission in confidential meetings.

Mr Willox said unions had been wrongly misrepresenting the AI Group, which has been pushing to restore flexibility arrangements in workplace policy that had been allowed during the Covid pandemic.

‘The union’s alleged comments paint a flagrantly misleading picture of the Australian Industry Group’s intentions,’ he said.

‘We will advance a proposal in response to the commission initiated proceedings that would make it easier for employers and employees to adopt working from home arrangements, by agreement, that suit their circumstances. 

‘The potential development of such a term is the purpose of the proceedings.’

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Penalty rates and BREAKS could be on the chopping block under new work from home rules

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