Following our recent call for feedback regarding the unilateral changes to flexible working hours, the PSA received numerous responses from members across the Lithgow and Maitland offices. Thank you to everyone who took the time to share your experiences, concerns, and the direct impact these changes are having on your working lives.
We have now collated this information and formally submitted a deidentified summary of your concerns to the Department of Customer Service (DCS) Industrial Relations team to ensure it understands the real-world consequences of these directives.
Summary of key member concerns
We have heard you loud and clear. The following key themes have emerged from your feedback, which we are now using to hold management accountable:
- Inflexible daily accrual caps Members have strongly rejected the one-hour daily cap on flex accrual. Many of you have pointed out this cap is not only industrially baseless but also disproportionately disadvantages part-time staff and working parents. It makes it mathematically impossible to accumulate enough flex credit to access your contractually entitled flex leave days.
- Forced breaks & WHS conflicts The directive forcing a 30-minute lunch break within the first five hours of a shift is causing significant operational and WHS issues. For early starters (such as 6:00am), this forces lunch breaks as early as 9:30am to avoid the outbound dialler embargo (10:30am-11:30am). Members have rightly described this as operationally disruptive and a failure to support genuine fatigue management. The PSA acknowledges that employees must take a minimum 30-minute break after five hours of continuous work.
- Restriction to “Bolded Tasks” The restriction of flex accrual to “bolded tasks” is penalising staff for performing essential administrative duties that are critical to keeping queues within Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Members have emphasised that when work is abundant, the option to work up to 10 hours (as per the agreement) should be respected to manage workloads effectively.
- Arbitrary performance claims Management’s blanket claims that staff “lose steam” and make more errors at the end of 9-to-10-hour days have been widely rejected by members. You have rightly demanded evidence for these claims, noting that such performance issues should be addressed individually, not through punitive, office-wide restrictions.
- Erosion of trust Many of you have expressed deep anxiety and frustration at feeling micromanaged. The sudden, unconsulted implementation of these changes has undermined the sense of trust and autonomy that previously allowed our teams to manage their workloads successfully for years.
Next steps
The PSA has requested that DCS Industrial Relations and Revenue NSW management immediately suspend the daily flex caps and forced break schedules while this dispute remains active. We are currently awaiting their formal response to our submission of your feedback.
We will update all members the moment we receive a response from the department and confirm the date for our next dispute meeting.
How to contact the PSA
If you have further feedback or need individual support, please contact the PSA Member Support Centre and quote reference number C10020412:
Telephone 1800 772 679 (1800 PSA NSW)
Email [email protected]
Contacts
Dean Allen
Industrial Officer
[email protected]
Trina Leask
Organiser
[email protected]
In the meantime, please continue to record your actual hours worked in MyWorkZone and stand firm. Your union is fighting to protect your hard-won conditions.
Stronger Together,
Public Service Association of NSW