Coalition For Quality Flexible Work

30 July 2007
MEDIA RELEASE

Flexible Working Hours Bill - A Great First Step For Employers and Employees

The Coalition For Quality Flexible Work has welcomed news that a bill providing workers with the right to request flexible working hours will go back to Parliament for MPs to vote on it.

Green MP Sue Kedgley’s bill provides employees who are parents of children under five and children with disabilities under 18, and employees with dependent relatives with a right to request flexible working arrangements. The bill also imposes an obligation on employers to negotiate these requests seriously and provides grounds for employers to turn a request down.

“This is a great first step towards acknowledging the responsibilities of employees who are also parents and caregivers and a step towards changing New Zealand’s long hours and inflexible workplace culture,” said Coalition member, Angela McLeod of the New Zealand Federation of Business and Professional Women today.

Mrs McLeod said the coalition supported the extension of the right to request to all employees.

“Flexible working arrangements benefit both employers and the employees,” she said. “Businesses that adopt flexible work practices have high staff morale and improved recruitment and retention. That can only help new Zealand’s very low productivity rate.”

Coalition member Cee Payne-Harker of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation said New Zealand lags behind other countries with laws providing workers with the right to request flexible work arrangements.

“More than 90% of workers in Sweden and Germany have access to flexible hours,” she said.

“For an increasing number of workers having access to flexible working arrangements is the only way they can manage family and other responsibilities while remaining in the workforce, where their skills and experience are needed.”

Mrs McLeod said it was disappointing that the National Party chose not to support the bill.

“It is a shame the National Party was not prepared to follow the leader of the UK Conservative Party who is a strong supporter of flexible working arrangements and the successful UK legislation this bill is mirrored on,” she said.

Mrs McLeod said the Coalition would seek meetings with National MPs to encourage them to take a more progressive position. She said the Coalition would also seek meetings with Business New Zealand and individual employers to discuss how they could benefit from the legislation.

BPW and NZNO are two of the 50 organisations who are part of the Coalition, formed in November 2006 to support the bill and call for its extension to all employees.

ENDS

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