Irish workers are slipping back into “old habits” of turning up at the office five days a week because of Government “foot dragging” over new laws to bolster working from home rights, the trade union movement has said.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) said delays to the promised legislation have created a “vacuum” that threatens to squander the once-in-a-lifetime chance to copperfasten widespread remote working.
In the meantime, employees are returning in their droves to workplaces, said Ictu’s head of social policy and employment affairs Laura Bambrick.
“The longer we leave this vacuum, from a time when people were working from home during the pandemic and this legislation coming into effect, the longer people are going back into their old habits, their five day week,” she said.
“If we go back to the old ways it will be a real loss. We will see the gains we have made over the last two years squandered, in terms of the work life balance people have enjoyed. It will be frittered away.”
The laws were originally promised by Tánaiste and Minister for Employment Leo Varadkar last September as part of a National Remote Work Strategy.
Ms Bambrick says neither trade unions nor employer representatives have yet been invited by Government for direct talks on the legislation. She believed it was unlikely to be enacted “this side of Christmas”.
She said official guidance on working from home during the pandemic “ended quite abruptly” at the start of the year.
“It took people by surprise and now we have found ourselves in a vacuum where public guidance isn’t there and legislation isn’t in place,” she said. “The suggestion that businesses are ahead of Government on this flies in the face of what trade union representatives are finding on the ground.”
The Right to Remote Work Bill 2021 has come under scrutiny at the Oireachtas committee on enterprise, trade and employment as it makes its way through the legislative process. The committee will report to Mr Varadkar on its findings and he has signalled he will take seriously suggested changes to the Bill, which he previously claimed could be enacted by the summer.
Unions and the Opposition have claimed the existing draft favours employers over employees as it offers too many options to refuse a worker’s right to continue working from home. There are 13 get-out clauses for employers, including concerns about internet connectivity, health and safety and data protection.
Despite the “big appetite in Ireland” for a hybrid model of working, Ms Bambrick said the legislation “as it stands is a toothless tiger that needs to be radically amended”.
“This is just a floor of rights, which unions have to build on with each employer,” she said. “There is a real urgency to get this legislation in place. Not least because of the cost of living crisis at the moment.”
The International Energy Agency — a Paris-based group of 31 industrialised countries — last week urged people, who can, to work from home three days a week. The proposal was part of a raft of recommendations aimed at cutting dependence on Russian oil amid outrage over the invasion of Ukraine.
“Working from home is also a way of reducing travel expenses for workers and one of the main benefits we have put forward is the saving on workers’ environmental footprint,” said Ms Bambrick, who said protections were needed to stop employers shifting energy costs onto home-workers amid rises in utility bills.In a statement, the Dept of Employment said: “Consultation on the new Right to Request Remote Working legislation was conducted in the usual way and included a public consultation. Engagement with the consultation was significant, a total of 175 submissions were received from a diverse range of stakeholders including trade unions, employer representative bodies, individual employers and employees and political parties.
“The new law, which will be the first of its kind in Ireland, is now going through pre-legislative scrutiny which is a further opportunity for consultation. The Tánaiste has said several times that he has a ‘listening ear’ on the legislation and is open to changes, especially in on provisions relating to the number of reasons to reject a request and the mechanism for appeal.
“Among the strengths of the proposed law is that it will require all employers to have a policy of remote and hybrid working as well as a legal right for workers to request it. Currently, this is not the case.”