The Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/9908/03/text/features3.html LABOUR ISSUES Employers flex their muscle on hours Date: 03/08/99 For most employees, enterprise bargaining has meant more give than take on when they work and for how long, writes RON CALLUS Changing traditional working hours was going to be a win-win situation for employers and employees. Or so we were told, not just by employers but by governments of both persuasions. However, for many employees it hasn't worked out that way. The flexibility has had to be very much on their side of the ledger, and the result has been a less predictable working life and a disrupted family life. This is vividly illustrated by the case of Kym Wood, whose employer, Steggles Chickens, wants her to start work at 6.30am instead of 8am. Wood has complained to the Industrial Relations Commission that the new hours would make it impossible for her to arrange child care for her three school-age children. The dramatic changes to working arrangements reflect the move from an awards system that often prescribed ordinary hours of work for a whole industry, to a system of enterprise agreements where working time could be tailored to the needs of a specific organisation. This issue has dominated enterprise bargaining since it began in 1991. Nearly 80 per cent of enterprise agreements deal with changing the times people work. The arrangements cover the number of hours worked each week; increasing the span of ordinary hours each day or each week (so what was paid previously as overtime becomes ordinary time); annualising hours; averaging hours worked over a month,a quarter or a year; and reducing or staggering rest and meal breaks. Enterprise bargaining has facilitated an expansion in operating hours for many organisations. About 30 per cent of all agreements allow for 12-hour spans of work and, in the wholesale and retail trade, the figure is 43 per cent. Enterprise agreements have also given management greater discretion about how hours are to be worked. About one-quarter of all agreements provide such discretion, while in industries like recreation, and wholesale and retail trade, the figures are well over one-third. To complicate matters, the working week is getting longer for many full-time workers. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 1978 about a third of full-time workers worked more than 41 hours a week. However, by the end of last year more than half of full-time workers worked such hours. The predictability of hours has also fallen because 25 per cent of the workforce is now employed as casual. On top of that, only a third of the workforce works standard hours each week. The Wood case, however, is not so much about how many hours people work but when they work. Traditionally, standard hours for full-time employees were 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday. But the desire of employers for more flexibility and the reduction or elimination of penalty payments for employees working non-standard hours means fewer full-time workers are working that traditional week. The proponents of change argue that this is good because workers can work when it best suits them. That may be true for those who work part-time, but the advantages are less obvious for full-time workers. Overwhelmingly, exactly when full-time employees are at work is determined by their employers, not by the workers. It is not surprising then that a national employee survey by the Federal Government in 1995 found that nearly 30 per cent of full-time workers were less satisfied with the balance between work and family life than a year ago. In contrast, 20 per cent of part-time workers were less satisfied with the balance. What, then, are the often-overlooked consequences to the working time arrangements for full-time workers when changes are made in enterprise agreements? First, with greater working time flexibility comes less predictability. Yet for many workers the need for predictable work hours outweighs the advantages of flexibility in starting and finishing times. The Wood case demonstrates problems when hours are changed unilaterally. It may simply not be possible to change child-care arrangements or school hours to fit the changing hours an employer needs. How many day-care centres have places for children whose parents find they have to work evenings or weekends? Co-ordinating family activities becomes almost impossible if one or more members of the family cannot be sure what days or hours they will be required to work. Rather than making work more family-friendly, these new arrangements may further isolate people from their families. Second, non-standard hours of work have wider implications for non-work leisure activities. People may no longer be able to commit to sports or other activities. Team sports require a group of people who share common free time. No wonder recent ABS data shows voluntary community activities are in serious decline in Australia, although this in part reflects the changes in working time in Australia. Third, changed working time arrangements have unintended consequences. The increasing popularity of days of 12 or more hours in the service, transport and mining industries brings potential health and safety problems. Fatigue, mistakes and injuries, stress and ill-health are all dangers when people work longer hours and where their pattern of sleep and their non-working time are changed regularly. Fourth, it is apparent some full-time employees have little say in when they work. About two-thirds of all workers in a national survey reported that they had some influence over when they started and finished work. For plant and machine operators and labourers, though, the figure is about one-half, whereas for professionals and clerks it is about three-quarters. Part of the explanation is the nature of the work, which is scheduled around using equipment or working as part of a work group within blue-collar jobs. But the bottom line is that those workers who are more skilled are likely to have more choice about when they work. The changing nature of working time in many organisations in Australia may mean that people are more likely to know when they will see their workmates than their families or friends. - Associate Professor Ron Callus is the director of the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training at the University of Sydney This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
