Unions in the NT have accused the Government of trying to block access to Work From Home for thousands of public sector workers.
Negotiations on a new NTPS General Agreement have been underway for over three months and union claims for better access to flexible work conditions, including Work From Home, has emerged as a key sticking point.
Compared to Commonwealth public servants, NTPS staff find it hard to access flexible workplace rights such as work from home, and workers report that requests to access flexible conditions are routinely denied.
It's clear that the NTPS approach to flexible work and working from home has not kept pace with modern work practices.
In fact, NT Government negotiators have declared improving work from home entitlements to be a 'restrictive work practice' for the purposes of the bargaining policy, even though most workers nominated flexible working arrangements as one of their highest priorities in bargaining. CPSU has put forward a range of cost-neutral claims such as removing caps on the number of days staff can work from home which Government negotiated continue to rebuff.
Quotes attributable to CPSU Regional Secretary David Villegas
The Northern Territory Government's approach to flexible work is outdated and ignores the fact that both employers and employees benefit greatly from this modern way of working.
If the NT Government is serious about attracting and retaining high calibre staff, it needs to offer modern, sensible, and flexible workplace conditions, including work from home.
The recent federal election campaign demonstrated clearly how highly modern Australian families value work from home and take an extremely dim view of governments or businesses who seek to threaten it.
