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Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
The little-known loophole Aussies are already using to work four days a week without taking a pay cut
Australians working full-time can already request to work four days a week without suffering a pay cut under a little-known law. The ACTU is using next week's Economic Reform Roundtable in Canberra to push for a four-day work week, with the union movement's president Michele O'Neil arguing fewer hours mean better productivity. 'Shorter working hours are good for both workers and employers,' she said. 'They deliver improved productivity and allow working people to live happier, healthier and more balanced lives.' But Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth said existing laws on flexible working arrangements already enable employees to ask their boss for a four-day week. 'When it comes to flexibility in the workplace, our legislative changes that we made last year actually allow for the request of employees to make flexible working arrangements and requests to work flexibly,' she told reporters in Canberra. 'That includes compressed hours in four days – I know that a number of organisations have entered into enterprise bargaining where they've looked at four days.' The Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Secure Jobs, Better Pay) Act 2022, introduced by the Albanese Government, allows full and part-time staff to request flexible working arrangements if they have been with the same employer for 12 months or more. But workers have to be a parent with a school-aged child or baby, a carer, someone with a disability, a pregnant woman, an older worker aged 55 or older, or someone enduring domestic violence. 'We want to make sure that the industrial relations framework allows employers and employees to work on flexible arrangements, as long as people don't go backwards in their pay,' Rishworth said. France legislated a 35-hour full-time work week in 2000 but last year started piloting a four-day working week. Unions are pushing the idea of more workplace flexibility with Australia in the grip of a productivity crisis. Hourly output per worker fell by one per cent in the year to March. That's a far cry from the 1990s and early 2000s, when productivity grew by an average of two per cent a year, back when the debut of the internet enabled each worker to produce more. With unemployment still low at 4.3 per cent, weak productivity means businesses often pass on the costs of higher wages to customers. In some sectors, this has kept prices higher, with service inflation still running at 3.3 per cent, despite headline inflation easing to just 2.1 per cent in the June quarter. Artificial intelligence has the potential to boost productivity, but a new Reserve Bank report released on Tuesday cast doubt on that happening anytime soon, because workplace software is still too expensive. 'Many firms also flagged the ongoing fast pace of growth in software prices as a challenge to fully capturing productivity gains from new technology investments,' it said. The ACTU on Wednesday argued Australia's poor record on productivity was the result of lacklustre investment in new capital and new staff, instead of employees being too lazy. 'Unions want all Australians to benefit from higher productivity – not just those with money and power,' Ms O'Neil said. 'A fair go in the age of AI should be about lifting everyone's living standards instead of just boosting corporate profits and executive bonuses.' Rishworth said enterprise bargaining arrangements could be used to boost productivity, with the government's multi-employer bargaining laws allowing wage rises to be replicated across a sector. 'We will continue to work across the board when it comes to reinvigorating enterprise bargaining,' she said. 'That is where so many productivity gains can be made in the workplace - that's what our laws have been about, that's what we'll continue to focus on.' The Albanese Government's industrial relations laws were a rebuke to former Labor prime minister's Paul Keating's Industrial Relations Reform Act of 1993, which aimed to stop wage rises being automatically copied. Rishworth hailed the Albanese Government's changes for encouraging more workers to bargain via collective agreements. 'Of course, one of the key areas that our government has been focused on is getting enterprise bargaining moving,' she said. 'Enterprise bargaining is good for employees, it's good for employers, and it delivers real wages. 'The most recent enterprise bargaining data shows that we have the largest number of employees covered by enterprise bargains since the inception of this enterprise bargaining, came in 1991.'
SBS Australia
2 days ago
- Business
- SBS Australia
Inside the push for a four-day work week ahead of key economic summit
The Australian Council for Trade Unions (ACTU) is joining the call for a four-day work week to become standard across Australia. The peak body for trade unions says that reducing working hours is key to boosting productivity while lifting living standards. It says that alternatives can be offered where a four-day work week is not possible, such as adding more rostered days off, increasing available annual leave, and redesigning rosters. It expects a four-day work week model to maintain the same level of pay through the protection of current pay and conditions. ACTU president Michele O'Neil said the move would ensure that all Australians would benefit from increased productivity and "not just those with money and power". "Shorter working hours are good for both workers and employers," she said Australians are working longer hours Since COVID-19, working hours in Australia have increased. A report from the Productivity Commission found that the record growth in hours did not result in increased output. Instead, productivity slumped overall. The four-day work week is one proposed solution to this. A 2023 study from Swinburne University examined 10 Australian companies trialling a four-day work week. They found that 70 per cent of the companies reported higher productivity. The 30 per cent that reported no gains found that productivity remained equal to pre-trial levels. Another peer-reviewed study found that a four-day work week can boost employee satisfaction as well as productivity. A survey of 2,896 employees working four-day weeks in organisations across Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland found shorter working weeks resulted in higher performance, a reduction in burnout, and better employee health and retention. 'Shaking the tree for ideas' The ACTU joins the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, who are also calling for a shorter work week ahead of the productivity roundtable next week. Treasurer Jim Chalmers says next week's economic reform roundtable aims to "shake the tree for ideas" when it comes to boosting productivity. Source: AAP / Mick Tsikas But not all workplaces are wanting to move in the same direction. The Australian Financial Review reported that some major banks are shifting their approaches to work culture after Westpac chief executive Anthony Miller sent a memo in December last year outlining his expectation for staff to work "every day, including Christmas Day". Westpac is one of the corporate entities contributing to the economic reform roundtable next week. Treasurer Jim Chalmers told ABC Radio on Wednesday morning that the roundtable is about "shaking the tree for ideas". "This economic reform roundtable is not to make decisions, it's to inform the government's decisions," he said. "We have an ambitious agenda that we're focused on delivering."
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Huge push for four-day work week to become reality for all Aussies
A four-day work week could soon become a reality for millions of Australian workers, if one union gets its way. The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) will push for the adoption of the new-age work trend when the government's productivity roundtable kicks off next week. It will advocate for workplaces to take on the 100:80:100 model, which means workers would retain 100 per cent of their pay, with 80 per cent of their current hours, as long as they can maintain 100 per cent of their productivity and output. ACTU president Michele O'Neil said it's time to start exploring other ways of working. 'A fair go in the age of AI should be about lifting everyone's living standards instead of just boosting corporate profits and executive bonuses," she said. RELATED 200 companies embrace four-day work week in 'long overdue' work shift 30,000 Aussie workers needed for Census jobs paying up to $60 per hour Centrelink warning for downsizing Baby Boomers over 'special' retirement rule Dozens of Aussie companies have already adopted the four-day work week and discovered huge positive results. But, the concept so far has largely been confined to white collar and office-type roles. It can be much harder to expand the approach into other sectors that depend on certain working hours, shift types, and remedy this issue, the ACTU will push for businesses that cannot adopt a four-day work week to give workers more rostered days off and annual leave days. Regardless of which approach is taken, the union wants to ensure that pay and conditions, including penalty rates, overtime and minimum staffing levels, wouldn't be affected. 'Shorter working hours are good for both workers and employers. They deliver improved productivity and allow working people to live happier, healthier and more balanced lives," O'Neil said. 'Unions want all Australians to benefit from higher productivity – not just those with money and power." What are the benefits of a four-day work week? Fundraising platform Raisely jumped on this bandwagon back in 2022, and there's been a noticeable shift ever since. Jordan Maitland, the company's chief customer officer, told Yahoo Finance they adopted the 100:80:100 model and praised artificial intelligence (AI) for helping staff reduce their workload. 'Life is busy and with AI we're able to get so much more done, which is almost at the expense of your people and you're almost getting too much done in five days that people are easily burning out,' she said. 'With all the technology and better ways of working, reward your people for that and let them have that day off and come back more energised." To ensure staff could adhere to the shorter week, Maitland said they had to cut down on certain project work and had less time for learning and development. But this meant they focused more on their 'core' jobs. There was a 10.1 per cent improvement in productivity, and staff reported their work-life balance had gone up by nearly 18 per cent. This has largely been the case for many businesses who took the 100:80:100 approach. The ACTU pointed to a study published in Nature Human Behaviour that showed how a four-day work week "boosts performance, reduces burnout and improves employee health and retention". That conclusion came after examining nearly 2,900 staff across 141 organisations in six countries after they took on the new-age work style. Swinburne University also found in a separate study that productivity lifted in 70 per cent of the firms that adopted the four-day work week. A poll of more than 2,500 Yahoo Finance readers found 90 per cent would prefer a four-day work week with the same pay. Why is there a productivity roundtable happening? The productivity roundtable was convened to examine how Australia could lift itself out of its current performance. According to Treasury, productivity growth in the 2010s was the lowest in 60 years. There are fears if this trend continued, it could have major implications for wages, living standards, and the overall resilience of the Australian economy. Back in 2022, Treasury downgraded its long-run annual labour productivity growth assumption from 1.5 to 1.2 per cent. While that might not sound too terrible, the 2023 Intergenerational Report revealed that a decline from 1.2 per cent to 0.9 per cent growth per year would reduce "per capita real income by more than $10,000 per person" over 40 years. As a result, experts are convening to give the government their two cents on how to avoid this from happening in Australia. The roundtable will focus on three areas: Making the economy more productive Building resilience in the face of global uncertainty Strengthening the budget and making it more sustainableFehler beim Abrufen der Daten Melden Sie sich an, um Ihr Portfolio aufzurufen. Fehler beim Abrufen der Daten
