DFSI Flexible Working Hours Agreement negotiations update – June 2016 (PDF version)

The PSA Flexible Working Hours Agreement (FWHA) Committee is pleased to be able to announce we have reached a mutually satisfactory position and can recommend version 5 to members.

Members now need to vote on whether they accept or reject this final agreement.

The Committee and the PSA strongly recommend you accept this agreement.

The negotiations the PSA have been engaged in with DFSI Management for the past 10 months have brought a positive result. We note the shift the Department has made from its original draft agreement has been significant and would not have been achieved without the solid and sustained input from your union delegates.

The agreement is seen by the PSA and the Committee as a workable agreement which maintains, and in many cases strengthens, most flexible working hours entitlements. This negotiated agreement will enable a continuation of the work/life balance which PSA members have enjoyed under their current flex agreements.

We have been assured by the DFSI Management team it will embrace the flexible nature of this agreement wherever possible.

There are a small number of matters on which members have sought clarification.

• For those members who are currently on a 38-hour-week arrangement per their award the 42-hour carry over in this final flex agreement does not have any effect on your flex entitlement. Your contract hours as defined in Clause 4.1.3 will remain the same. Those on a 38-hour week arrangement will have equal access to flex hours as employees working 35-hour weeks.

• Employees who currently do not have core hours will no longer have access to this entitlement. We stressed at the beginning of these negotiations that the Government’s Wages Policy Taskforce (WPT) was tasked with formulating parameters to apply to all Public Sector FWHAs in the public sector. One of those parameters included the removal of ‘no core time’ and implementing a core time. In this case the PSA and the Department have reached agreement on a five-hour standard core time. Despite this, the new agreement provides for the ability to set “other standard core hours”. This means that those currently on no core time arrangement may need to negotiate with management for their core hours once this agreement is implemented.

The implementation date for the new agreement has not been decided upon yet. Management has indicated it needs more time beyond 1 July for its implementation. In the meantime the PSA has been given a guarantee that DFSI employees will remain on their existing FWHAs and will not revert back to the basic flex provisions in the Crown Employees (Public Service Conditions of Employment) Award 2009.

Please find a link to read the final agreement HERE.

Please open the following link HERE to vote on whether you accept or reject the final agreement.

Voting will close on Tuesday 28 June 2016.