Shift work in Service Delivery
Telstra has notified the CWU that it will introduce shift work arrangements in the Workflow area of Service Delivery.
The new arrangements will apply to Field Deployment Officers (FDOs) only and Telstra says they will be only worked by individual employees by agreement.
Telstra first notified the CWU of its intention to introduce shift work into this area in mid-April and has since been in consultation with the CWU and other Telstra unions about this proposal.
As a result of that process and input from members and other employees, Telstra has now limited the shift work to one functional group, the FDOs.
The new shift arrangements will not apply to Workflow Team Managers, Workflow Scheduling Specialists or to Field Deployment Coordinators, although in recent correspondence Telstra has flagged the possibility of revisiting this decision.
Such moves are part of a larger push within sections of Telstra to introduce changes to working hours to reflect what it argues is now a 24/7 business cycle world-wide. Needless to say, such a cycle does not necessarily fit easily with the work/life priorities of employees, especially those with family responsibilities.
For this reason, the CWU believes that the performance of shift work must remain strictly voluntary, as it is under the current Enterprise Agreement.
