The push and pull continues between management and staff about returning to the office. And in some cases it’s becoming more acrimonious.
But if push comes to shove — specifically, a company shove back to the office — workers likely do not have many ways to challenge the directive in court, employment lawyers say.
“With few exceptions, the employer has every right to call people back to the office,” said Mark Hanna, a partner at Murphy Anderson, a Washington D.C.-based law firm representing workers.
Those exceptions include a contract that stipulates a specific work arrangement like remote work, he said. Two other exceptions include a union’s collective bargaining agreement that allows for remote work and an individual’s arrangement for remote work due to a disability, Hanna noted.
The issue is only going to gain importance in the months ahead, studies show. Seven in ten employers told the employer-side law firm Littler Mendelson that hybrid work best described their staff’s working arrangements. But nearly half of the companies allowing some at-home work said they would be requiring more in-office work in 2023 compared to 2022, according to the May report.
As someone who represents unions in the bargaining process, the amount of remote work “is an increasingly common point of contention between workers and management,” he said.
Advertisement
More companies are insisting on the in-person show up. Farmers Group is facing worker discontent, according to the Wall Street...
JAMMU: The family of a 26-year-old Christian man in Lahore has rejected allegations of blasphemy because of which he was arrested in August. The family has said that his arrest was baseless as the...