Employment Relations (Flexible Working Hours) Amendment Bill: First Reading

SUE KEDGLEY (Green): I move, That the Employment Relations (Flexible Working Hours) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee.

The tension of trying to juggle paid work and family responsibilities is taking a huge toll on families today. As dual-income families become the norm, and as more and more parents are in the workforce, even when their children are young, employees are feeling overloaded, tired, and chronically stressed trying to juggle full-time work and care for their children at the same time. The problem is especially acute here in New Zealand where we have a sort of long working hours ethic in culture and one of the highest proportions of workers putting in long hours of paid work in the OECD. In recent surveys a majority of employees said they were working longer hours, feeling under constant stress, that their life was out of balance, and that this relentless pressure was having a debilitating effect on their lives and those of their families.

Employees said that they were able to spend less and less time with their families, that the limited time they were able to spend at home was corroding their relationships with their partners and children, and that they were missing out on crucial stepping stones and key milestones in their children's development. Clearly, that sort of long working hours culture discriminates against employers with families who want to work more flexible working hours that better suit the needs of their families.

It is no wonder that so many employees with children simply give up the struggle and drop out of the labour market, because they cannot find ways of combining paid work and the demands of looking after young children. It is interesting that one in three mothers do not come back to the workforce after having children, when their children are young.

Some employers have responded to the call for better work life balance and more flexible working patterns and they do offer employees flexible working options. Treasury, the Westport Buller District Council, EDS (New Zealand) Ltd*, and Deloitte's* are very good examples. Despite all the rhetoric we have heard in recent years about work-life balance*, those employers are the exception rather than the rule. Not nearly enough is being done to encourage and support parents who want to work flexibly when their children are young.

It is interesting, and Mr Mapp might be interested to know, that a Department of Labour* survey of work-life balance found that most New Zealanders it surveyed felt reluctant to even broach the subject with their employers, because they were afraid that they would be penalised for doing so. That is why Governments are stepping in to protect employees who want to have the choice about how they balance work and family life, especially when their children are young.

Germany, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands all provide employees with a legal right to request more flexible working arrangements, or to reduce their working hours. The United Kingdom has introduced legislation, giving employees with young and disabled children the right to request flexible working hours that this bill is based on, and other Governments are actively promoting flexible working hours. Clearly, New Zealand is lagging behind in encouraging more flexible working conditions for employees, especially when their children are young, and that is why I have drafted this bill. Its aim is modest — namely, to change workplace culture so that employers more readily accommodate the needs of parents with young children to work more flexible working hours, or give employees with children under 5, or disabled children under 18, a statutory right to request flexible working arrangements, and it places a legal duty on employers to consider any such request seriously. It also enables employers to refuse a request under certain circumstances, such as the inability of an organisation to reorganise or recruit additional staff.

Mothers and fathers, guardians, and foster parents will all be eligible to apply, providing that they have worked for an employer for 6 months. They can apply to change the hours they work and the times of day they are required to work. They can apply to work part time, work compressed hours, work a 4-day working week, and so on.

The right to work flexibly, as enshrined in this bill, is designed to meet the needs of employers as well as employees, and is far from dictating to employers, as Wayne Mapp suggests in a press release last week. Its intention is to provide a framework to negotiate reduced working hours that are mutually agreed to, and to find a solution that works for both employer and employee. The employee will make a written request, pointing out the working pattern that he or she wants to work, he or she will meet his or her employer, discuss it and consider alternatives if it cannot be met. Employers will have a statutory duty to make a formal business assessment of the request and will only be able to refuse a request where there are clear business reasons for doing so and based on designated criteria. An employee whose request is turned down can challenge through an appeals procedure, but hopefully, recourse to mediation will be rare, because studies show that flexible working arrangements not only make life easier for parents and children but they have significant benefits for employers and the economy as a whole.

Numerous studies have shown that flexible working arrangements make employees more satisfied, more motivated and productive and they reduce absenteeism, stress-related health problems, workplace* accidents, staff turnover, and therefore, recruitment costs. They enable employers to attract and retain employees with valuable skills and knowledge who would otherwise leave the workplace to care full time for their families.

A recent review of the British legislation that this bill is based on found that it has been very successful in changing workplace culture and making it more family friendly for employees with young children. It is so successful that the Labour Government there has promised to review it and to extend it to cover parents with children under 12 and employees with elderly and other dependents. We would welcome an extension of its provisions and hope that this will be considered in the select committee. In England, since the bill has been introduced, about one million British parents have made a request to work flexibly. Eight out of 10 requests have been granted, and a compromise has been reached in a further one out of 10 requests. Both the nurses union and the Council of Trade Unions have come out in support of this bill. They say that pressure to balance work and family life is a major problem for many workers and that flexible working arrangements would overcome one of the key barriers to women pursuing a career.

The Prime Minister announced recently that she wants more women in the paid workforce. Well, making paid work more flexible, enabling parents with children to work more flexibly, or part time, would help achieve this goal. National has suggested that the bill could create an environment where employers would not hire women, because they would be more likely to require flexible working hours. That is a nonsensical suggestion. It is precisely the argument that was used against equal pay, it was used against pay equity, it was used against paid parental leave, and it has not come to pass. It has not happened in the United Kingdom and it will not happen here, because the entitlement applies equally to men as well as women, and as a surprise for Wayne Mapp, as many men are wanting to spend more time with their families as there are women. I am confident that those fears will not be realised and that employers will find that flexible working hours is something to embrace. It will enhance workplace productivity and make them more attractive to employees.

Flexible working hours makes sense for individual families, for employers, and for society as a whole. As a society, it makes sense that we help parents spend more time with their families when they are young. It makes sense that we modernise our workplaces and change our workplace culture so that they are results driven, not work-to-clock cultures. It makes sense that we redesign work in a way that responds to employees' needs and gives employees some choice over the actual time they work. It makes sense for the health of families, for the health of children, and for the health of the nation. As I have said, the aim is a modest one, and we would like to see the bill extended in the select committee. We are astonished that parties that claim to be family friendly, such as United Future and National, would turn down such a modest, simple request to establish a right for parents with children to work more flexibly and to work part time. I think that many New Zealanders would be utterly astonished at why they should be opposing this bill.

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