Prepared by The Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training (ACIRRT)

The University of Sydney with assistance from researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)

This paper has been produced with the assistance of a great many people and organisations.

Financial assistance was provided by the sponsoring unions and peak councils. These were: the AEU, AMWU, ALHMU, CEPU (ETU Branch), CFMEU (Mining and Energy Division), FSU, NTEU, PTU (Rail Division), ACTU, VTHC, NSW Labor Council, WATLC, UTLC (SA) and the Tasmanian TLC. The immediate initiative for the project came from Leigh Hubbard (VTHC) and Rob Durbridge (AEU). Their ongoing support and involvement has been invaluable. All eight sponsoring unions have been generous in making the scarce time of their officials and delegates available for the purposes of this project.

Administrative support and overall project co-ordination has been provided by the Centre for Union Research and Education (CURE). Leigh Snelling in particular has played a crucial role in keeping a wide range of union officials and activist involved in the policy development process associated with this project. Regular phone hook-ups of the project steering group were organised by the AEU. These hook-up have played a central role in the development of ideas contained in this paper.

Field work for this project was undertaken by John Buchanan, Kathryn Heiler and Shannon O’Keeffe in Sydney, Iain Campbell, Sara Charlesworth, Jon Wiseman, Leigh Snelling and Nick Halfpenny in Melbourne and Richard Pickersgill in Perth.

The attachment on overseas experiences has been provided by Iain Campbell. Ian and John Wiseman (also from RMIT) also provided many valuable comments throughout the course of the project.

Administrative support in report preparation has been provided by Shiralee Birnbacher and Michelle Spartalis at the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training (ACIRRT).

The views expressed in this document are those of the project researchers and do not necessarily reflect those of any of the sponsoring organisations. The input of all involved in the project has been, however, greatly appreciated.

Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training (ACIRRT )

University of Sydney

November 1998

This issues paper has been prepared to assist the union movement develop an effective response to the key working time challenges facing Australian workers today. Our priority has been to incorporate the best of the insights provided after extensive consultations. This document is the third complete redraft of two previous issues papers. While this has ensured a better substantive analysis and more comprehensive set of policy proposals it has meant we have had little time to refine the drafting. We have assumed that honouring the tight deadline was more important than presentational precision in finalising the project.

It should also be noted that we have not had sufficient time to incorporate many of the detailed suggestions about specific issues from particular unions. These will be included in the final draft of the paper.

JB & KH

Australian workers and their families are currently experiencing serious problems as a result of changes in hours of work. The problems concern:

• unfair distribution of hours worked eg while unemployment remains high, increasing number of full timers are working longer hours. Currently just over a third of the labour force works standard hours, roughly equal numbers work excessively long or inadequate hours;

• unsatisfactory duration of hours worked eg over 30 per cent of full timers now work over 49 hours per week (up from below 20 per cent in the early 1980s). About 50 percent of managers working extended hours want to work less hours per week. On the other hand increasing numbers of part-timers (about 30 percent) want to work more hours;

• increasingly unpredictable, irregular and insecure hours eg over one employee in four is now a casual, up from 15 percent in the mid 1980s. This has hit women, one out of three of whom are casual, especially hard;

• increasingly intense hours worked eg in 1995 over 50 percent of workers report intensity of work has increased in the last 12 months and this is creating ill health, fatigue and poor quality of working life;

• a weakening connection between hours worked and earning eg currently about sixty percent of those working overtime do so for free. The annualisation of salaries is severing the link between hours worked and hours paid for. Both developments are reducing effective hourly rates of pay.

A co-ordinated campaign on working time issues is needed now because:

• the quality of family and community life is now being seriously compromised by emerging working time arrangements
• excessive hours of work for some is unfair when unemployment is high
• workers’ health is profoundly comprised by changes in working time arrangements and length of time at work
• some demographic groups are being disproportionately affected by recent changes eg women with children and older workers
• the quality of working life and relationships at work is deteriorating
• hourly rates of pay are being effectively cut as a result of the breakdown between hours worked and hours paid for
• fragmentation and individualisation are undermining unions capacity to organise effectively
• the erosion of accepted standards, especially by non-union agreements and individual contracts, needs be arrested immediately (Section 3).

The objectives for any future working time campaign should be:

1. Immediate:

1. position unions to become one of the leading forces in the public debate on working time.
2. build on established rights and entitlements and stop the further erosion of occupational health and safety standards

1. For casuals, contractors and labour hire workers these standards must ensure that their working conditions are neither undermined or undermining of other’s conditions. These workers require strong industrial representation at the same time as their presence must not erode existing standards of permanent employees (Section 4a).

1. Longer term: achieve a new regime of secure flexibility in working time

1. working time rights for all workers, irrespective of their legal status employees, casuals or contractors
2. achievement of fewer hours of work required of full time workers to achieve a living wage. A new target for standard hours in the range of 30 - 35 per week should be settled. Shorter hours could possibly take the form of career breaks and/or increased time for caring for children and other dependant or longer annual recreation leave.

The new union agenda for working time reform needs to address issues such as:

• the rights of all workers to secure flexibility, not precarious flexibility

• raising base rates for low paid (especially blue collar) workers so that full timers do not have to work long hours to earn a decent income

• introducing mechanisms to monitor level of unpaid overtime for white collar workers. This in turn should help increase employment opportunities for these types of workers

• increasing compensation for the growing numbers of workers employed on a precarious basis (eg casuals, contractors and labour hire workers)

• ensuring such workers accrue rights on the basis of continuing employment, irrespective of casual or contractor status

• ensuring shift workers have rights concerning the design and operation of their rosters on family, social and OHS grounds

• improving conditions for part-time workers to ensure that this form of employment is not synonymous with precarious work.

• the minimum number of hours required to be worked a week to earn a living wage. In this context we note that debate in Europe is now considering the possibility of a 30 hour standard working week, rights to career breaks and an increase in the length of annual recreation leave

• extending standards to cover maximum hours that can be worked over a week, month and quarter as well as rights concerning the averaging and banking of hours (Section 4.2).

A union strategy for working time reform will require:

• industrial, community and political initiatives
• formalising and generalising new standards by State and federal governments and industrial tribunals
• activity to occur at national, industry, regional and workplace levels
• national leadership and co-ordination to nourish enthusiasm and support activity at local level (Section 4.3).

• co-ordinate a national industrial working time campaign
• develop a national charter of new basic working time rights
• mobilise new constituencies in support (eg professionals like doctors and managers working excess hours)
• initiate new test cases when the campaign has achieved momentum.

• identify common concerns and objectives
• develop a range of campaigning activities
• support employers and unions taking positive initiatives in this area
• oversee a new series of annual ‘awards’: ‘the civilised company’ and ‘barbaric company of the year’ awards.

Legislative initiatives directed at:

• ratifying relevant international conventions on working time, for example ILO convention 175 on part-time work
• broadening the coverage of and protective conditions contained in awards for non-standard workers

Establish clusters of unions facing similar problems to organise campaigns to:

• establish new framework arrangements at industry level concerning new standards appropriate for particular sectors
• share research resources and precedents on how to achieve effective reform.

• help document the scale of the current working time problems
• identify ways of tackling it
• provide active support to unions and employers attempting to address the problem.

• State legislation on hours of work
• State test cases (eg extending award coverage to non-employees)
• activities by Workcover authorities so that they start to take hours of work issues seriously as an OHS issue.

• enforce current standards
• start to establish new ones through local bargaining.

(a) Formation of a multi-union campaign committee

• blue collar union cluster
• professional/quasi-professional white collar union cluster
• casual/precarious worker union cluster
• shift work union cluster

(b) Bargaining claims for enterprise agreement negotiations

• unions need to document the nature of good arrangements currently in place. The consolidation of such arrangements would provide a valuable resources for delegates and officials taking up the issue in negotiations. In this context it should be noted that many of the best practices are not codified in registered agreements. Good customs and practices need to be documented as well as exemplary clauses contained in registered agreements
• unions should consider taking responsibility for trialing different aspects of the agenda for reform noted above. For example, the ALHMU could focus on problems of casualisation, the blue collar cluster of unions on the problem of labour hire and the white collar cluster problems of unpaid overtime. In this way lessons can be learnt from a variety of experiences and claims more effectively formulated in the future as a result of assessing experience in the field
• one or two issues of common concern could be highlighted in the negotiations for all unions eg right to management information system data and input into staffing decisions. A common claim on an issue such as this could provide a unifying point for a movement wide push to do something about work intensification/work overload. In addition OHS impact statements should be prepared before any future changes in working time arrangements are agreed too. And at the expiry of every agreement an assessment should be made of what impact, if any, changes in working time arrangements have had on health and safety issues in the workplace, home and local community.
• where-ever possible unions should consider experimenting with worksharing initiatives. This will require increasing base rates to minimise loss of income to current workers. Such initiatives, even if they are only limited in number will be vital for showing unionists are actively concerned about the problem of unemployment. While it may not achieve much in the short run it will show that other options are available to solving unemployment other than cutting wage rates for the low paid.

3. Educating members and workplace delegates

(d) Formalisation of a union-community alliance for a civilised society

1. That the Australian union movement resolves to undertake a nationally co-ordinated working time campaign to address a wide range of work and community problems arising from current working time arrangements.
2. That the objectives of this campaign should be:

1. take a leading role in the debate on working time reform
2. build on and consolidate established rights and entitlements
2. augment established standards to address new realities of work.
3. achieve a new regime of secure flexibility in working time.

4. That the new union agenda on working time needs to address wide range of traditional and less traditional industrial issues, especially concerning the problems of intensity and security of ours worked. Special attention also needs to be devoted to the differential impact on groups like women, older workers and NESB workers.
1. That the strategy to be followed must involve industrial, community and political initiatives. It must also operate at national, intermediate and local levels.
2. That the priority activities should be:

1. pursuit of a co-ordinate round of working time claims in all subsequent rounds of enterprise agreement negotiations as a prelude to a more concerted push for new standards at industry and national levels
2. education of member and delegates about the nature and extent of the problem and options available for addressing them
1. formation of a union-community alliance for a civilised society.

This issues paper has been prepared to help generate debate in the union movement over the dramatic changes to hours of work in Australia and begin to identify what unions can do. It is not a statement of official union movement policy. Neither is it a definitive research document that exhaustively considers the extensive research literature on working time or canvasses all of the possible strategies.

It is now well known that working time arrangements are being radically transformed. The dimensions of this process have been documented by a range of studies examining worksharing (eg Buchanan and Bearfield 1997), work and family issues (eg Charlesworth 1996), extended working hours (Heiler 1998) and the rise in atypical employment (eg Campbell 1996). The union movement has begun to address these issues in the living wage claim. Stage two of the claim included consideration of casual employment. Stage three the issue of standard hours of work. In addition, a number of unions have undertaken independent initiatives concerning working time (eg Victorian electrical contracting industry 35 hours agreements, FSU campaign against unpaid overtime). There is now growing interest amongst a number of unions in developing a strategy on working time reform to advance the issues of shorter, more secure and more flexible hours of work.

In April this year a group of unions approached the Australian Centre for Industrial Relations for Research and Training (ACIRRT) at the University of Sydney to assist in the development of union responses to changes in working time. The unions covered coal mining, manufacturing, finance, hospitality and education. The Victorian Trades Hall Council and NSW Labor Council were also original sponsors. WA and SA TLCs and the PTU have subsequently joined the project. The ACTU has endorsed the project as part of its overall jobs and security campaign. Project fieldwork was undertaken by researchers from ACIRRT as well as the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Melbourne.

The primary source of material has been interviews/focus group discussions with leading officials, organisers and workplace delegates, primarily in Sydney and Melbourne. The industries covered in the project cover both public and private sector as well as blue and white collar workers. They included coal mining (CFMEU), manufacturing (especially metal and engineering) (AMWU), electrical contracting (CEPU), public transport (especially railways) (PTU), primary, secondary (AEU) and tertiary education (NTEU), banking (FSU) and hospitality (ALHMU).

In late October 1998 a draft issue paper was circulated for discussion and workshops were conducted with sponsoring unions and TLCs in all States bar Queensland. This paper represents the outcome of the policy development process to date. It has benefited enormously from comments provided by comments provided by over 200 union delegates and officials.

The structure of working hours in Australia has changed profoundly in a way that has severely disadvantaged many workers. These changes have often made it more difficult - not easier - to balance work, family and social obligations. They have encroached on family, social and community life and compromised health and safety at work. They have delivered workplace flexibility to management while eroding many working time standards achieved in this country over the last century.

The promise of "flexibility" has often failed to deliver a better balance between work and family but has instead delivered increased unpredictability, less control over hours and increased insecurity, stress and underemployment - especially for women workers. The option of permanent, secure part-time work is possible but often not pursued by employers. Having a full-time job has increasingly meant excessive hours and unpaid overtime, while, at the same time, other Australians are not working at all. Flexible scheduling and compressed working time for males has often meant women and families are bearing the brunt of long working days and nights, making it difficult for women to participate on their own terms in the workforce. High levels of unemployment, increasingly precarious employment and tighter management control over work performance have made many workers insecure and frightened to pursue working time rights and entitlements.

• changes in working time have been profound and structural, not cyclical;
• working time problems assume different forms and have a differential impact on different workers -- there is a strong industry and gender dimension to the problem;
• the changes are characterised by increased fragmentation, dispersion and individualisation making bargaining collectively difficult.

Let’s look at the some of the key changes in working time that have created this current "crisis" in working time. these can be organised as follows:

• distribution
• duration
• predicability, regularity and security
• intensity
• compensation

First, we see that the distribution of working hours in Australia appears inequitable and that available work is not being shared evenly or fairly. Some Australian are working excessive hours, while others are not working at all and others are under-employed. While we still have over a third of employees working a "standard" working week of 35-40 hours, we also have workers who are holding multiple jobs, who are part-time and wanting more hours, who are unemployed or who are working unpaid overtime. This means that new working time strategies will also have to encompass these workers who are not working the "standard" as we have traditionally conceived of it. Figure 1 below shows the new distribution of hours.

We also know that many employees who work "standard" hours are not happy with their hours of work. AWIRS 1995 for example showed that:

• 26% of full-time workers are unhappy with their hours, wanting either more hours or fewer hours;
• 20% or one in five workers want fewer hours and this is strongly occupationally based as the graph below shows;
• managers and professionals are most unhappy with excessive working hours the very groups - ironically - who are more likely to have the so-called flexibility being touted as being able to provide for greater working time choice;
• those workers with more traditional structures for hours - paid overtime and more set structures - are also happier with their hours. We also suspect that this is strongly associated with being paid for overtime
• those workers wanting fewer hours are also those less likely to be paid for their overtime.

• Duration: full-timers working longer hours

Why are so many workers unhappy with their hours of work? Perhaps this can be explained by the structural increase in hours for full-timer workers over the past 20 years and the increased precariousness of working hours for others. For example, we now have more full-time workers working over 40 hour per week than we have working 35-40 hours per week. Despite the gains made towards a shorter working week up until the mid 1980s, these gains appear to have now been arrested, and we are now looking at a structural - not cyclical - shift towards much longer regular hours of work for full-timer workers.

Indeed, Australia is now a country where long hours of work differentiates us from other countries. For example

• Australia was positioned second out of 20 OECD countries for having the second largest group of work working regularly 45 hour or more. Only the UK was ahead of us in this regard;
• a full 7% of all persons working over 60 hours per week, up from 3% in 1978 (Dawkins, 1997).

• Precarious employment: reduced predicability, and security of hours

Not only are many workers working excessive hours, others are precariously employed. Australian managers have been hooked on employee flexibility and increasingly they have been pursuing this flexibility by creating an ever larger pool of precariously employed workers. Profound changes in the shape of the labour market and the employment status of workers is and will create special challenges for the industrial strategies that will need to be developed to respond to these emerging forms of employment.

We can get a sense of how the status (and thus the working hours) of employees is changing by looking at the trends associated with casualisation, contractors and labour hire firms are developing. These workers do not have to be experiencing precarious or irregular and unpredictable hours, but our research indicates that increasingly "non-standard" form of employment are strongly associated with precarious, irregular and unpredictable hours. We look at some of these trends below.

• Casuals increased from around 16% of the workforce in 1984 to 26.1% of all employed persons by 1996; one in three females employees are now casual.
• There has been a sharp increase in casualisation rates among males with almost 1 in 5 males employed being casual

The industry dimension of the problem shows the increase in casual density by industry between 1984 and 1993.

When we compare Australia with other OECD countries it shows that we have outstripped all other OECD countries with the exception of Spain

Australia has seen a steady growth in the use of contractors and our field research indicated that contract employees were both undermining workplace standards, and having their own conditions undermined. Figure * below shows that relative growth in own account workers between 1978 and 1998.

• an increase in workplaces using agency workers rose from 14% to 21% between 1990 and 1995
• workplaces reporting retrenchments rose from 39% to 44% in the same period, being especially significant in larger workplaces (39% - 60%)
• 35% of workplaces reporting using outsourcing

• Intensity of work: working harder and more stressed

AWIRS 95 showed clearly - and it came through strongly in our research - that increased work pace, tighter management performance monitoring and control and workplace understaffing were also leading to serious problems with work intensification, workplace stress and decreased ability to balance work and family.

• Erosion of compensation for excessive hours and anti-social hours: the "managerialisation" of time

Protection against excessive working hours and anti-social hours has been achieved in Australia through the allocation of "premiums" and special compensation for this kind of work. These protections are being rapidly eroded, especially non-union enterprise agreements and individual contracts. We see that:

• hours have increased while paid over-time has not;
• unpaid overtime is increasingly not just a feature of managerial work, but increasingly a feature of waged occupation;
• there has been an erosion of compensation for night work and weekend work and a subsequent devaluing of the personal and family costs of this work;
• there has been an erosion of the value of wages through the weakening of the relationship between the hours worked and hours paid for and an increase in annualising salaries and wages.

These recent shows high levels of unpaid overtime and salary packaging among white collar workers and low levels among the more highly unionised blue-collar workers.

Enterprise agreements show that non-union agreements are far more likely to contain provisions which reduce the compensation for overtime and anti-social hours.

Australia has relied upon the award system to regulate and provide the protections for working time conditions. Unlike most other OECD countries, we have no legislative maxima for weekly ordinary hours or total hours other than is provided for in awards and agreements. The erosion of federal awards and the ability to bargain away conditions in agreements and individual contracts may leave us with only the shell of protective provisions for hours. This is especially the case where unions are not present. The following non-union agreements from the Bank of Melbourne shows the erosion of working time standards that can occur.

Outlined below is just a summary of the more detrimental impact of unregulated and increasingly fragmented working time arrangements:

• occupational health and safety (excessive hours, fatigue, work intensification, stress, ill-health, isolation);
• differential impact on different groups with males tending to experience serious problems with excessive hours, and women experiencing both underemployment and precarious employment and a disproportionate impact on balancing work and family;
• decrease in and degradation of common leisure time (voluntary and involuntary extra time, but a decline in the quality and useability of the time; individualisation of leisure time);
• reduction in the value of wages as hours increase but wages do not
• reduces in the premiums on unsocial and irregular hours which erodes the value of the costs associated with shiftwork and irregular work;
• increases encroachment of work onto family, community and social life and a corresponding erosion in the quality of life and civil society;
• fragmentation of working time arrangements leading to decollectivisation at work and in the community (reduces shared, common time at work and out of work)
• the individualisation of work schedules will makes it harder for unions to represent the collective and organise around these issues and reduces the social nature of work;
• increased managerial prerogative as employers can pick off worker and assume greater control over the work process (workers pitted against each other over the issue of time)
• particular issues for women and families (where it is assumed that women can carry the burden of domestic responsibilities to accommodate the extended or anti social work patterns of their partners, or that they can reorganise their lives to be able to work irregular and precarious arrangements)

While the problem is widespread it is important to recognise that the form the problem takes differs between industries. Understanding such differences is important when devising responses. Details of findings for particular industries are summarised in Attachment 2. A brief summary of the key issues in each industry studied is summarised below.

In Hospitality in the large hotels, for example, the key working time problems were work intensification linked to under-staffing, cost-cutting and use of more sophisticated and individualised performance measurements systems. Increased unpredictability and reduced "quality" and adequacy of hours, driven by high levels of casualisation and job insecurity resulted in low pay and often irregular hours of work. Even where entitlements such as paid overtime existed, many workers were either unaware or too frightened to access them. Many employees feared that further award simplification under the Workplace Relations Act would further erode compensation for unsocial and insecure work.

In Finance, work intensification was a similar problem, but driven by a deliberate processes of under-staffing and increasing workloads and work pace - especially at a branch level where banks are happy to see customers so dissatisfied that they turn to electronic banking. Long hours and unpaid overtime was a problem in the insurance sector, underpinned by annualised and "professional" hours, while in the banking sector, many full-time staff were reluctant to take out their entitlements to paid overtime. The spectre of job insecurity and company restructuring was leading to a decline in collective responses to problems as workers saw industrial solutions increasingly in individual terms.

Even in the Black Coal industry, where historically many working conditions around working time were forged, we are seeing an erosion in existing working time conditions and a threat of more to come. In NSW, for example, workplace delegates complained of pressure on workers to work through their rest and meal breaks, of the threat of contractors undermining conditions and of excessive overtime being worked. A strong sense of job insecurity was leading many workers to adopt a "short-term" mentality towards the industry where high earnings through excessive overtime was seen as an early way out. The spread of 12 hour shifts - in a form not necessarily in the employees best interests - is emerging as a real possibility in not just open-cut but also in underground mines. While there are union guidelines for these shifts, the spectre of AWAs and individuals contracts is making many employees very concerned about their spread.

In Manufacturing working time issues have been closely tied up with wider restructuring within this sector. This restructuring is driven by rising levels of international competition. Unionists at all levels reported that many managers were not responding at all creatively to the pressure. It appears that there is a growing management practice to equate ‘reform’ with arbitrarily cutting levels of full time, permanent employees so that there are not enough people to do the work required. When demand rises additional workers are engaged as casuals, contractors or through labour hire firms. Management control has been greatly enhanced in recent years with the introduction of ever more sophisticated information and monitoring systems. These are often used to closely monitor the performance of individual workers and counsel them when time allocations for tasks are not met. Across the industry working time arrangements are becoming increasingly diverse. Lower standards set in non and weakly unionised sites and amongst contract/casual/labour hire employees are placing pressure on unionised workers. AMWU delegates report that many workers are unaware of their current rights and often have little understanding of the significance of major changes in working time arrangements to which they agree. Some delegates reported that fatigue related accidents appeared to be on the rise.

In the electrical trades, the ETU unionists reported that their current shorter hours strategy was badly needed. A culture of excessive overtime, driven both by employers and some employees was undermining attempts by the union to develop an industry- wide strategy. The use of casuals, contractors and labour hire firms was driving down and eroding working time standards, with these workers prepared to accept reduced conditions. Increased workloads, call-outs and weekend work was eroding the quality of family life while the trend towards annualised salaries was making it difficult to track levels of overtime and reducing the compensation for unsocial days and hours.

In the education sector, work intensification and work stress were leading to a severe deterioration in working life. The AEU reported that increased class sizes and workloads, changing curriculum and increased administrative loads was leading to unacceptably high levels of unpaid overtime. The reliance on "professional" standards and dedication of teachers meant that they were increasingly carrying the costs of reduced spending on education. In the tertiary sector things were no better. The NTEU unionists reported how increased workloads, little control over workload, employment insecurity and reluctance to take out entitlements were all leading to an erosion of working conditions.

Finally, in Western Australia, the PTU reported that a combination of privatisation, corporatisation and downsizing was severely eroding working time standards to an extent that long distance rail drivers feared a major accident. Unionist reported increased fatigue as a result of extended working hours and longer shifts, increased split shifts at management discretion and management pressure to reduce and stagger rest and meal breaks. High levels of job insecurity and casualisation meant that the union found it difficult to generate a collective response to working time, especially where any loss of pay was involved.

We can see, therefore, that many working time themes recur across the industries -- work intensification, reluctance to take out existing entitlements, erosion of longstanding working time conditions that ensured adequate rest and respite from work and delivered common social and family time. Underpinning this erosion is the constant spectre of unemployment, contractors, labour hire firms and casuals used by employers to cut costs, undermine existing working time conditions and increase the level of job insecurity among existing employees. Many of these marginalised employees are also experiencing problems of job insecurity, unpredictability and uncertainty of hours. While many unions were trying to hold the line on conditions, job insecurity was acting to undermine a sense of worker unity and collectivity as some employees saw short-term, individual, rather than collective responses as the best way of furthering their immediate interests. The irony for many of these workers is, however, that the weakening of collective working time standards has in fact diminished and limited individual working time preferences.

Changes in working time are being driven by a wide range of economic, social and industrial forces. The key ones are summarised in Table 3.

While problems of this nature persist working time problems arising from understaffing, work intensification and job insecurity are set to continue. At the same time, the weakening of regulatory protection for working hours, evidenced by award simplification and the growth of individual contracts has highlighted the vacuum that current exists in Australia around working time regulation.

This basic fact does not mean, however, that a concern with working time issues should be postponed until all the major economic, social and industrial relations problems are solved. Far from it. Questions of working time directly affect the quality of jobs. The issue of quality is extremely important. In the 1980s Australia had one of the highest rates of employment growth in the OECD. As was evident in Section 3 this development appears to have coincided with an increase in both casual employment and excessive hours of work for permanent full timers. Clearly changed approaches to the management of working time are necessary to prevent a repetition of this outcome in the future. We need to reduce unemployment at the same time as creating jobs that offer security, fair and equal treatment for part-time and casual workers. We should also provide more flexibility for employees. Most importantly of all we should set standards which mean the standard hours required to earn a living wage are not excessive.

When considering how to respond to the problems of working time it is therefore important keep the working time issues in perspective. They cannot be solved in isolation. Equally they require special attention because broader economic, social and industrial relations initiatives on their own will not be enough to address the issues identified in Section 2.1. An indication of the kind issues that need to be taken up in other complementary campaigns are summarised in Table 4.

Section 2 outlined a wide range of material. It is obvious that something must be done to address them. To help generate a response it is worth summarising briefing the key reasons why a union campaign on working time is needed now. Eight issues in particular stand out in this regard:

• the quality of family and community life is now being seriously compromised by emerging working time arrangements

• excessive hours of work for some is unfair when unemployment is high

• some demographic groups are being disproportionately affected by recent changes eg women with children and older workers

• the quality of working life and relationships at work is deteriorating

• hourly rates of pay are being effectively cut as a result of the breakdown between hours worked and hours paid for

• problems of fatigue, stress and anxiety are on the rise and clearly related to longer, more intensive and less secure hours of work

• fragmentation and individualisation are undermining unions capacity to organise effectively

• the erosion of accepted standards, especially by non-union agreements and individual contracts, needs be arrested immediately.

4. RESPONDING TO THE PROBLEM

An effective union response to current working time problems needs to be careful planned. To assist the movement with this process we begin by proposing campaign objectives. Objectives are important as they help focus attention on priority issues. They also provide criteria for evaluating success over the years. In framing objectives we have formulated proposals for the short, medium and longer terms. Having clarified objectives we then make suggestions concerning potential elements of a new agenda for working time rights. Such an agenda is important to address emerging labour market realities - realities for which few standard currently exist. In thinking about standards it is not just a question of upgrading current entitlements, it is also about establishing completely new types of standards to deal with issues like averaging of hours, rising level of labour hire employment and control of staffing and management information systems used in helping determining staffing levels for particular work areas and tasks. We finish this section by outlining a suggest strategy and campaigning priorities. Attachment 3 summarises some of our specific findings on these issues arising from the project field work.

4.1 Objectives of a union working time campaign

Having identified the dimensions and causes of the problem the challenge is to devise effective responses and strategies.

We have identified both problems and opportunities for the trade union movement concerning changes in working time. On the basis of our findings we suggest the following immediate objectives as critical for underpinning a Work/Time/Life campaign.

4.1.1 Establish unions as a leading force in the debate on working time reform.

We do have an existing infrastructure of working time rights and entitlements in legislation, awards and agreements that has been achieved by the labour movement since last century. These must be consolidated and reaffirmed. There must be a clear rejection of the notion that "anything goes" in the labour market or at the workplace. Notions of community standards and rights to common time have been significant achievements. They provide a coherent basis for the notion of "anti-social" hours. The notion that standard hours of work required for a living wage should decline as society becomes more productive also needs to be reaffirmed.

The notion that further deterioration is inevitable and unstoppable must be rejected. Instead, the movement must project a positive vision that the gains of the past can be further enhanced in the future.

Activity could commence almost immediately around some of the more pressing issues within industries. Examples of such activity could include:

• reducing unpaid overtime in finance sector
• closely monitoring averaged hours arrangements
• protecting part-time and casual conditions in female dominated industries
• insisting that entitlements to paid overtime are enforced
• insisting on guidelines for shiftwork and 12 hour shifts in mining and manufacturing are followed
• ensuring that workers take their meal and rest breaks.

These may seem small victories but would provide an important symbolic message to employers and employees while presenting a rich organising opportunity for unions. In addition, educating workers about their entitlements would provide a solid basis for launching campaigns to improve entitlements.

4.1.3 Augment established standards to address the new realities of the labour market.

The growth in on-standard working time does not mean we do not need standards - we need different ones. In particular, new standards must address the needs of both "traditional" full-time and part-time workers as well as the large and growing number of casuals, contractors and labour hire workers.

1. For "traditional" workers these standards must cater for the desire for flexibility and diversity among permanent employees. For example, urgent attention needs to be devoted to monitoring banking and averaging hours arrangements and the reality of ‘professional’ hours
2. For casuals, contractors and labour hire workers these standards must ensure that their working conditions are neither undermined or undermining of others conditions. These workers require strong industrial representation at the same time as their presence must not erode existing standards of permanent employees.

It is essential that the movement develops a longer term vision about the relationship between time at work and time for living. In this context attention needs to be devoted to what unions want to achieve of the next decade and beyond. Working time policy is not simply about responding to immediate challenges. It should also be about setting the agenda about what it means to live in a civilised society. In this regard we would suggest two possible longer terms objectives as a basis for starting debate. Far more attention will need to be devoted to this issue if you are win and keep the initiative on working time reform in the future.

A summary of the suggested objectives for a union working time campaign is provided in Table 5.

Section two noted the wide range of working time problems confronting Australian workers. It is essential that practical proposals are devised to address these. The Table 6 summarises some of the key issues identified in our interviews with officials and workplace union representatives. It is by no means exhaustive. It has been provided to prompt debate on how to define the problem, help identify specific issues that need to be addressed and offer suggestions of how new working time rights might be defined. At the heart of the proposed new approach is the idea that workers should have the right to secure flexibility, not precarious flexibility. And for full timers consideration also needs to be given to extending standards to cover maximum hours that can be worked over a week, month and quarter as well as rights concerning the averaging and banking of hours. In this regard precedents being set in Germany are of particular interest. Some of the most innovative initiatives are coming that country’s metal and engineering sector. For example one recent agreement stipulated ‘that negotiations on hiring new staff must begin when the average credit balance exceeded 120 hours in various departments.’ This stops accrued hours being forfeited because workplaces are too busy to let employees take off accrued days.

4.3 Getting there: suggestions concerning strategy and activities

Achieving the above objectives will required an integrated, staged strategy of industrial, political and community based activity. It will also require activity at national, intermediate and local levels.

At the industrial level the details of how working time is to be improved will need to be worked out as a matter of urgency to ensure that no further erosion of working time standards takes place. A clear lead on this matter must come from the national level. Activity at this level is essential to nourish enthusiasm and support activity at the local level. A national union campaign committee needs to be established to drive the process. One of the most challenging industrial issues will be bringing staffing levels associated with work scheduling under some kind of joint control. Establishment of a network of ‘working time monitors’ at workplace level may provide a starting point for improving practices associated with this issue. In addition a new union-community sector ‘coalition for a civilised society’ should be formed. Ultimately legislative reform and wins in key test cases in the commission will be required to achieve success. As a general principle industrial campaigns should start with establishing key standards in the field at workplace and industry level. New precedents set at this level should then be generalised through the award system on the basis of key test cases and ultimately more generally through legislation to cover non-employees. Details of particular activities concerning these matters are summarised in Table 7.

Success will only be achieved if the union movement initiates a broader community debate about the balance between production, consumption and the distribution of productivity growth. Success will be confined to a limited number of well organised sectors unless the wider policy and community debate is won about how productivity is best distributed to promote the kind of civilised society we want. Currently the cult of profitability (narrowly defined as ‘shareholder value’) dominates policy discourse. It is essential that a wider vision of how productivity growth can be distributed is promoted. This is not about unions prioritising ‘equity’ over ‘efficiency’. Rather it is about moving debate about these issues out of the rut in which it is currently stuck and posing the question: what kind of society do we want? One totally subordinated to the needs of work or one in which a healthy economy provides the basis for a more desirable way of life? A life for family, friends, learning and contemplation. An effective alliance with church and community groups will be vital in this regard.

The churches, women’s groups and greens have already shown an interest in these issues. The child care sector and other community and family groups, especially those relying on volunteers are also likely to see the merits of a improved working time standards. To help focus attention annual award should be given the ‘civilised company of the year’ and the ‘barbaric company of the year.’ Many in the broader community are likely to respond the a union lead concerning the need to promote more civilised approaches to the management of time. Suggestions for particular structures and activities are provided in Table 7.

Political and legislative initiatives should complement industrial activities. Key initiatives needed in this regards would include:

• new protections for workers from unscrupulous use of the corporations law

• abolition of individual contracts and restoration of the integrity of the collective bargaining system

• consolidation of the rights of part-time and casual employees through adoption of a charter similar to the European Directive on part-time and casual employees

• tightening up control of contractors through deeming provisions similar to those which have operated for owner drivers in the NSW road transport industry. A major review of PPS arrangements is also long overdue given the proliferation of this form of labour both in the construction industry and beyond

• consideration also needs to be given to more vigorous defence of labour standards in international trade agreements (eg WTO and APEC) to ensure international trade is based on fairer competition concerning hours of work.

While any number of activities could be undertaken on the issue of working time we believe priority activities should be identified to ensure change happens. Our suggested priority activities are as follows.

(a) Formation of a multi-union campaign committee

• blue collar union cluster
• professional/quasi-professional white collar union cluster
• Casual/precarious worker union cluster
• shift work union cluster

(b) Bargaining claims for enterprise agreement negotiations

• unions need to document the nature of good arrangements currently in place. The consolidation of such arrangements would provide a valuable resources for delegates and officials taking up the issue in negotiations. In this context it should be noted that many of the best practices are not codified in registered agreements. Good customs and practices need to be documented as well as exemplary clauses contained in registered agreements
• unions should consider taking responsibility for trialing different aspects of the agenda for reform noted above. For example, the ALHMU could focus on problems of casualisation, the blue collar cluster of unions on the problem of labour hire and the white collar cluster problems of unpaid overtime. In this way lessons can be learnt from a variety of experiences and claims more effectively formulated in the future as a result of assessing experience in the field
• one or two issues of common concern could be highlighted in the negotiations for all unions eg right to management information system data and input into staffing decisions. A common claim on an issue such as this could provide a unifying point for a movement wide push to do something about work intensification/work overload.
• where-ever possible unions should consider experimenting with worksharing initiatives. This will require increasing base rates to minimise loss of income to current workers. Such initiatives, even if they are only limited in number will be vital for showing unionists are actively concerned about the problem of unemployment. While it may not achieve much in the short run it will show that other options are available to solving unemployment other than cutting wage rates for the low paid.

(d) Formalisation of a union-community alliance for a civilised society

Working time issues affect all in the community, not just workers. It is important that community organisations are involved in the campaign from the outset. A new formal arrangement may need to be established with the community sector and churches to provide a focal point for this campaign.

The situation is both challenging and urgent. The potential for rapid improvement is, however, very real. Working time rights formed the core of the initial gains of the union movement last century. Effective campaigning on the issue now could help underpin a renewal of the contemporary union movement, especially in non-traditional and emerging areas of work, often where working time standards are weakest. More importantly, success of this issue will not just benefit unions but will improve the quality of life for society at large. It is time our priorities were reaffirmed: we should establish a system in which we work to live instead of one in which we live to work.

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