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Labor Minister Aschbacher recommends offering and using more home offices. SPÖ and Neos demand faster results.
Negotiations between the social partners and the Federation of Industry and Commerce with the government for the new regulations on home offices have started today at the Federal Chancellery. Working groups are now being formed for this purpose, and Labor Minister Christine Aschbacher (ÖVP) intends to present the first results in March.
Before the corona pandemic, the head office affected about ten percent of employees. With the closing of March, according to the Minister of Labor, around 40 percent of the employees moved from the office to the house overnight. “We are at the beginning of the second wave of the corona pandemic,” the minister said at a press conference at the Federal Chancellery on Friday after the meeting of the social partners. Therefore, it will now be increasingly necessary to offer and use home office.
The exact regulations for this shouldn’t come until the spring when the working groups present their results. There are also exceptions, the home office accident insurance regulation expires at the end of the year, so action is needed. Aschbacher also spoke of a “manual” that summarizes best practices. But in the other areas, companies and employees will likely still have to make individual or company contractual agreements.
AK demands agreements instead of orders
The president of the Chamber of Labor, Renate Anderl, emphasized that the home office should be voluntary in principle, that agreements between employees and employers are needed, not orders. Work equipment must be provided by the employer and employee protection must also apply when working at home. “Here we have to specifically consider how we can evaluate workplaces,” said the AK president. Sick leave is also still a reason not to work at the head office.
Anderl emphasized that the home office must be clearly separated from family and leisure. Working at home is not babysitting. Minister Aschbacher said flexibility is required on the issue, for example if you want to spend the afternoon with the family and work a few hours at night. But she doesn’t want to shake up the night’s rest.
Chamber of Commerce Secretary General Karlheinz Kopf noted that general labor law still applies. On the one hand, working from home requires the greatest possible flexibility and clarity, for example, if the company provides the resources or if they use their own. The president of the Federation of Industrialists (IV), Georg Knill, stressed that the agreements between employers and employees had worked well so far. The industry wants to continue this successful “work from home” model. The ÖGB are sitting at the table, but the head of the ÖGB, Wolfgang Katzian, was unable to attend the press conference due to another appointment, according to Aschbacher.
SPÖ and Neos criticize
“Why hasn’t the government done anything for months?” SPÖ social spokesperson Josef Muchitsch criticized in a broadcast. He did not understand why the government was only now approaching the Interior Ministry issue from a labor law perspective. The SPÖ had already submitted a motion to the National Council in early July. A new regulation for home office / telework must contain the following points in particular: A separate company agreement in the Labor Constitution Law, which must be accessible to arbitration, mandatory instruction in accordance with the Employee Protection Law and a requirement of equal treatment among employees, in particular with regard to home office access, remuneration, promotional opportunities, In addition, accident insurance protection and clarification is required that all operational resources, such as cell phones, computers, VPN networks, are available to the employer and also to the employer. technical data security should take care.
The Neos also calls for faster regulations. “We need rules to work from home before winter, not sometime next year,” said Neos health and social spokesman Gerald Loacker. It is an “accusation of poverty” that the government has done nothing until today. The number of infections would increase in winter, so companies and employees now need clarity in order to prepare for the coming months. He refers to NEOS ‘previous requests for legal protection for telecommuting and offers to work to find a solution in the coming weeks, and not a year after the outbreak of the pandemic.
(THAN)
