Electricity and Internet must be taken over by employers. Compensation or data protection issues are also open.
Yesterday the home office regulation was presented by the government and the social partners, today the Chamber of Labor clarified some points – from their point of view. Employers would have to cover the electricity and internet costs that arise during working hours. The employer and employee (or the works council, if available) would have to determine how high the remuneration will be.
Work equipment such as laptops have to be made available by the employer or they have to be reimbursed, said AK expert Silvia Hruska-Frank today in the “Ö1 morning journal” on ORF radio. Work is still going on on the exact form in the event of claims for damages, for example when the house cat empties its coffee using the keyboard.
Home office agreements are based on the voluntary nature of the employee and could be terminated by the employee after a month – but important reasons would have to be given. It would be good to have these already included in the agreement.
When asked about the obligation to work from home in Germany, Hruska-Frank stated: “This is also the case in Austria in times of pandemics. So our regulation is actually almost analogous to the German one. Employers currently have to offer home office if possible. In It is possible for about two out of five employees. According to our feedback, that works very well. “
In response to the objection that the employees wanted it that way, but there was resistance from the employers, the AK expert replied: “No, I think there have always been very different approaches. My personal approach has always been, I think that you want to get along well with each other in an upright employment relationship and have to live well together and with legal claims that you cannot enforce, you get no further. It is important that it works well for both. “
AK expert Silvia Hruska-Frank refers to a template for an employee-employer agreement that the social partners are still working on. “We will provide that very quickly and of course we would like the companies not to have additional effort, but that they can simply help themselves with this agreement,” she said in the “Ö1-Morgenjournal”.
The SPÖ reports concerns about data protection. Their data protection spokesman, Christian Drobits, demands that employees working from home are not left alone with the data security of their self-purchased equipment. “It is very important to me, however, that data security must not be used to control the performance and behavior of employees. The privacy of employees in the home office, i.e. in their home, must be ensured,” says Drobits.
