Non‐standard working‐time arrangements in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

In the post-World War II period, working and social life has been organised around the concept of a standard day and week with premium payments for work undertaken during unsocial hours. In recent years, this standard model for organising working-time has been placed under pressure from a range of supplyand demand-side factors. This paper reports on the findings of 1995 survey into the extent and nature of non-standard working-time arrangements in Australia and New Zealand. This paper seeks to assess whether employers in the more deregulated New Zealand system have instigated a vastly different non-standard working-time regime from their Australian counterparts. The article concludes that there are only minor differences in the distribution of non-standard working hours in Australia and New Zealand. It appears that production and operational demands are the central imperative in the structuring of working-time within firms, not the system of labour regulation.

The Coming of the 24-hour Economy?

“…In Belgium, a collective agreement and a statutory law was passed in 1987 enabling companies to introduce new work schedules that relaxed the restrictions on night-time and Sunday work. This changing legislation has frequently been implicated as the starting point for a 24-hour society and economy, in which 'round-the-clock' production and consumption are increasingly considered as normal practices (Garhammer, 1995;Allan et al, 1998;Breedveld, 1998;Masson, 1999;Golden, 2001).…”

“…Generally speaking, the 24-hour society is believed to be driven by exogenous or macro-level factors (Allan et al, 1998;Hamermesh, 1999;Masson, 1999;Baker et al, 2003;Presser, 2005). Flexibilization and destandardization have often been understood as ways to accommodate changes in technology and the global market (Garhammer, 1995).…”

“…Time-use data allow the different times throughout the day at which paid work is carried out to be very accurately identified. As a result, not only the prevalence of night or weekend work, but also the prevalence of work during the fringes of the working day, that is, early in the morning or later in the evening, can be assessed (Allan et al, 1998). Moreover, time-use data from different years could prove to be very useful in analyses of social changes from a historical perspective.…”

Shiftwork experience and the value of time

“…During both phases it has been suggested that the worker seeks improvements to family and work conditions. As penalty payments are highest at night and over the weekend (Allan et al 1998) it may be that these workers are prepared to work at any time, on any day, in order to maximize their financial remuneration and hence improve family financial conditions.…”

A phase-advanced, extended sleep paradigm to increase sleep duration among early-morning shift workers: a preliminary investigation

“…While shift work may be broadly defined (2), work start times that fall between 04.00-08.00 hours are typically classified as early-morning shift work (3)(4)(5). Recent data indicate that a considerable proportion of employees in Western countries are engaged in early-morning shift work: over a third of the Australian workforce starts work by 07.30 hours (6), 32.7% of the Swedish work force regularly starts work between 03.00-05.30 hours (7), and about 20% of the total workforce in the USA starts work between 02.30-07.00 hours (8).…”