Unions unleash part-time IR battle

Unions will push for restrictions on part-time work, including minimum four-hour shifts and 28 days’ advance notice of rosters during a review by the Fair Work Commission.

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke wants awards made easier. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

Unions will push for restrictions on part-time work, including minimum four-hour shifts and 28 days’ advance notice of rosters during a major review of part-time employment conducted by the Fair Work Commission.

But employers have accused unions of “demonising” flexible forms of work, and will seek new provisions allowing part-time employees to agree to work additional hours without overtime.

FWC president Adam Hatcher said the “fundamental review” of part-time employment would establish a standard model in awards, while the tribunal would also determine a new working-from-home clause in the clerks award that could be a model to operate across industries.

The commission’s moves follow a lack of consensus among employers and unions during a smaller targeted review of awards initiated last year by the Albanese government.

Justice Hatcher said the part-time employment review, to commence next year, would examine daily and weekly minimum hours of work for part-time employment, and the circumstances in which working hours may be altered and additional hours may be worked.

In seeking the targeted review last year, Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke said the government wanted awards made easier to use but opposed changes that could result in any reduction in entitlements for award-covered employees.

During the targeted review, the commission heard proposals to change rostering restrictions as well as calls for both lesser and greater minimum engagement periods. Employer organisations told the commission that current part-time employment provisions across awards were inflexible and inhibited access to secure work, resulting in engagement of casual employees, labour hire and independent contractors.

They said the award requirement for the payment of overtime meant that some companies were not able to offer additional hours to part-time employees.

The Australian Industry Group said the existing part-time model was “rigid and inflexible”, proposing a revised definition that could provide greater flexibility to fix ordinary hours of work, more scope to vary those hours, and include an option for employees to agree to additional hours at ordinary rates of pay, rather than overtime.

Ai Group chief executive Innes Willox said it was common for awards to strictly mandate that employers and employees agree on the precise hours and times that an employee would work on any given day when the employee is first engaged, with any additional hours that are worked to be paid at penalty rates.

“The result is that employers are frequently discouraged from offering additional work opportunities because of the cost of the penalty rates,” he said.

The ACTU rejected the employer proposals, warning workers would have to give up their basic rights and give employers even more control over their working hours and conditions.

Unions want workers to be given advance notice of 28 days for rosters, except in exceptional circumstances, with roster changes made by mutual agreement only. Some awards have zero or two-hour minimum payment periods and the ACTU is seeking a four-hour minimum engagement period as a baseline entitlement for workers, including part-timers and casuals.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil said part-time workers needed adequate, stable and predictable hours to help them balance work and care and ensure they could earn enough to make ends meet.

“Unions want to see roster justice so that working Australians juggling work and family life have a fairer system of hours, rosters and shifts,” she said. “There is a clear need for better rights so workers can have secure and reliable rosters that accommodate caring responsibilities.”

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry director of workplace relations Jessica Tinsley said “part-time provisions which were rigid or which provided ‘one-way’ flexibility would only serve to disincentivise employers from agreeing to employ part-time workers”.

“Unions have long demonised flexible forms of work, and business will oppose any attempt by them to use this process to destroy part-time jobs,” she said.

The review of the working-from-home provisions in the private sector clerks award will kick off next month.

Justice Hatcher said the clerks award had been identified as the most commonly used award under which working from home was most likely to occur.