Mike's Minute: ACC and the work from home legal case

The ACC vs union work from home legal case is a good one and it became even better after the Westpac dispute in Australia last week. 

There are two bits to these sorts of cases. One was the specific, as in what's in a contract, what's the wording, what have you agreed to and what haven't you agreed to. 

Then you've got the moral question; the big picture, the team spirit and the attitude. 

Work from home is a symptom of all that is wrong with productivity and very few do productivity as poorly as this country. 

Covid wrecked the workplace. It allowed for work from home to be invented. 

Not literally, but generally for a period it was all you could do. 

From that moment a seed was planted, and the seed has grown into a mindset. 

Over a remarkably short period of time the idea became a habit, a right and, for some, the norm. 

Not just that, but so entrenched did it become in the minds of some that what was once not even an idea became something to be outraged about if the spectre of it ending was even uttered. 

Even though you have spent the vast majority of your working life going to the office. 

No one jumps on a get-out-of-jail card quicker than a union. 

I don’t know what was, and wasn’t, said at the ACC. But what I do know is work from home has become a gargantuan piss take. 

Don’t get me wrong – you save on the commute, the cost of parking, and you don't have to worry about hoping the bus is on time. 

It all makes sense from a selfish point of view. 

The Australian case even had the woman moving miles from town so she could drop her kid off at the special school they had selected. 

Westpac said that was a lifestyle choice, which unquestionably it was, but tough luck said the court and the woman won. 

So maybe ACC are onto a hiding to nothing. Let's see. 

But specifics aside, work is a quid pro quo and taking the mickey, which is what work from home is now that you aren't locked down, isn't a balanced relationship. 

It’s a material shift, born of necessity, and then abused. 

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