Work from home has become the topic that trade unions, workers, employers, but also legislators deal with. The importance of this issue has been shown by a regional OHS workshop which has recently been organised with the support of the American Solidarity Center (AFL-CIO).
During the last year’s pandemic when the economy came to a standstill a significant number of employers sent their employees to work from home. According to the data of the Oxford Internet Institute, Serbia is ranked 11th in the world and 4th in Europe by the number of people working from home. Before the pandemic this form of work was usual for a limited number of employees. Namely, in Serbia less than 2% of people worked from home.
Labour law also includes the possibility of working from home (Article 42). However, this is a complex type of work which involves prior fulfillment of many legal, but also personal employee’s conditions. Therefore, not everyone can work from home, even if the work they do could theoretically be done outside employer’s premises. Work from home is a new, temporary and insufficiently defined situation that requires to be regulated more precisely because there are employers who intend to keep their employees working from home when the pandemic is over. What’s important is that employees mustn’t be paid less and have worse working conditions than those performing same or similar tasks in employer’s premises.
The biggest challenge for the trade union will be working conditions and employees’ rights, primarily regarding the control of working time, payment of salaries and corresponding benefits, as well as a formal recognition of the trade union as a negotiator for work from home, as well as work in the office. The question also is whether work from home was ordered by the employer or it’s self-employment. Therefore, analysts think that the third category of workers should be introduced – economically dependent workers who work for an employer but are self-employed. However, this category is not acceptable for the trade union as it is usually misused.
Undoubtedly, trade union faces the issue of trade union association of people working from home, collective bargaining and equal rights for all, setting work-life balance without discrimination and social exclusion. This will be trade union’s activity in the upcoming period as employers announce that they will keep organizing work from home even when the pandemic is over. On the other hand, employees consider this to be a temporary solution and they would rather get back to their offices as some employers are planning to impose redundancies.
