[Legislative Council] Flexible Working Arrangements

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• published: 07 Feb 2016
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22 October 2015 Legislative Council, NSW Parliament Flexible Working Arrangements The Hon. ADAM SEARLE (Leader of the Opposition) [3.47 p.m.]: I wholeheartedly support the motion on flexible working arrangements brought to the Chamber by my colleague the Hon. Courtney Houssos, and I congratulate her. As outlined in the motion, the trade union movement was responsible, through its long-term campaign, for securing what used to be the eight-hour day. I must say I have never worked only an eight-hour day, but the point is that the campaign started on 18 August 1855 in this State with the Stonemasons Society in Sydney issuing an ultimatum to employers that they wished to work an eight-hour day. The campaign culminated in a victory dinner on 1 October 1855 in this State, which is celebrated as Labour Day and is now a holiday in New South Wales. However, when the ultimatum expired in 1856 there was general agitation and more industrial action, and by early March 1856 an eight-hour day was secured in that industry more generally, but it was paid for by a reduction in wages. It took a long time for the eight-hour day to be achieved nationally. This did not occur in Australia until the 1920s via an award of the Commonwealth Arbitration Court when it approved the 40-hour, five-day working week, which began on 1 January 1948. This achievement was described by historian Rowan Cahill as: … one of the great successes of the Australian working class during the nineteenth century, demonstrating to Australian workers that it was possible to successfully organise, mobilise, agitate and exercise significant control over working conditions and quality of life. The Australian trade union movement grew out of the eight-hour campaigning and the movement that developed to promote that principle. Of course, moving forward, economics changed from the early 1980s and onwards. The advent of technological change, also mentioned in the motion, has led to a significant erosion of that principle. In fact, there has always been a difference between waged workers and salaried workers. Waged workers were paid strictly for their time and when required to work overtime were paid overtime, often at penalty rates. Salaried workers were paid a set rate—and were often in the professions—and were just expected to work as much as necessary to get the job done. I know that applies to members of Parliament and often their staff also. From the mid-1980s to the present there has been ongoing pressure on people to work as many hours as needed to do the job. I was briefly a public servant and even in the public sector one was expected to just get the job done. No overtime was paid unless one was specifically directed to work overtime—indeed, there was never a specific direction. Workers were just expected to deliver. I know that in the public sector today those pressures are much, much worse. The idea that Australians are fairly relaxed when it comes to the world of work is not true. As a young person a number of years ago I was surprised to read a report from the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Teaching that showed Australians work some of the longest hours in the OECD bracket of nations. It did not fit with the proper conception of Australians. We work very long, hard hours and we do so largely without complaint. In September 2014 the average full-time worker worked on average 39 hours and 13 minutes per week. That total is now 39 hours and 29 minutes—a jump of 16 minutes. It does not sound like very much on an individual level but when that is aggregated across a workforce of more than 12 million people, it is an awful lot of additional time being worked. The average part-time worker put in 16 hours and 42 minutes per week; that has now increased to 16 hours and 56 minutes, a jump of 14 minutes. Aggregating that across all industries and sectors means that is a very significant uplift. Of course, it only measures work in the workplace. The motion refers to technological change. With the advent of iPads, computers, remote access and mobile phones there has been an expectation that workers—either management or those at the coalface—will be available to take phone calls or answer emails. There is an expectation that workers will respond outside work hours. That is fine, particularly when there are peaks in workloads or deadlines, but it has gone from being the exception to the norm. Employers still expect workers to do the set office hours but in addition to be available to answer phone calls and emails.... FULL TRANSCRIPT AT http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/HansArt.nsf/V3Key/LC20151022046?open&refNavID;=HA8_1