Right to seek remote work must be extended, committee says

Employees should be able to make a request to work remotely without being required to have at least 26 weeks of service in their job, an Oireachtas committee has recommended.

The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment has said the grounds upon which an employer can refuse a request under the Government’s draft remote working Bill are “cumbersome” and should also be revisited.

The recommendations are contained in the committee’s report following its pre-legislative scrutiny of the Government’s Right to Request Remote Working Bill, the heads of which were approved by the Cabinet in January.

A cornerstone of its broader remote working strategy, the Bill is aimed at making remote working a permanent feature of Irish working life by giving workers a right to request remote working and to formalise the legal framework around which requesting, approving or refusing such a request can be based.

‘Britain needs a shake up’: UK economist from a Kilburn Irish family on banks, business and Boris

---

Switching your mortgage: Incentives are on the rise, so is now the time to change?

---

‘It’s a gamble’: Can an official history of British policy during the Troubles really be done?

---

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: Director Wes Ball on despotic leaders, the war on truth and ‘the soup we’re all swimming in’

---

Public negativity

Aspects of the Bill have, however, been criticised by trade unions, employers’ groups and opposition politicians throughout the pre-legislative process. The committee noted in its report that much of the public commentary on the Bill “has not been positive”.

One particular point of contention is that the draft legislation provides employers with 13 separate grounds upon which they can refuse a request to work remotely.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) has argued that the grounds are vague and stacked in the employer’s favour. Appearing before the committee in May, officials from the Department of Enterprise said they were considering substantial revisions to the text of the Bill, including a reduction of the “enumerated grounds for refusal”.

The enterprise committee “agreed that the grounds for refusal are cumbersome and require change”, the report noted. Under similar laws elsewhere in other European jurisdictions, the number of grounds for refusal ranges from just five to eight, the committee said. noting the department should also “revisit” the wording of 10 out of the 13 grounds with a view to “strengthening [their] objectivity”.

Legal right

During the process, the Ictu had also argued that employees should have a legal right to appeal a refusal of their request to work remotely on the grounds that the refusal was unreasonable. The draft Bill only allowed for a formal appeal on technical grounds such as a late response to the request.

The committee has now recommended that “tighter grounds” should be included in the primary legislation to ensure that unreasonable refusals are “open to challenge”. It also said that “after a reasonable passage of time”, the policy of an employer should be open to challenge in the WRC “if it is leading to a high level of refusals of reasonable requests”.

The committee also recommended reducing the number of weeks of service that an employee must have before they can make a request to work remotely from 26 weeks to 12 or fewer.

Ibec has declined to comment on the pre-legislative report. The Ictu, meanwhile, has urged the Government to “act without further delay” and make the Bill a legislative priority.

“There has been a deficit of ambition by Government to deliver on their commitment to provide workers the right to request remote work,” said Ictu general secretary Patricia King.

“The Bill as currently drafted does not deliver robust legislation guaranteeing fair procedure and balancing employer and employee needs. Government must not delay amending the fundamental flaws, it now acknowledges, in this important piece of legislation – in particular tightening the grounds for refusal and strengthening the right to appeal – and getting it enacted.”