A mate of mine works for BP in Perth and he does a 9 day fortnight. Just wondering whether they are quite common place or it is only just a few firms that offer that flexibility?
Thanks
Select to expand quoteRails said..
most public service jobs offer that sort of flexibility
Disappearing fast. They were introduced in the 70's, 80's as government saw it as a way to relieve traffic and train congestion, taking 10% of people off the road and train, and also because of the longer working day to make up the extra time, it also helped move those people out of the peak travel periods.
Now those government organisations are being turned into SOC's (State Owned Corporations), the mighty dollar rules, and they are trying to chain people to their desks as much as possible by trying to pull the 9-day fortnight away each time they renew their Workplace Agreements. We are having to fight continually to keep ours.
A number of years ago, my boss asked me what salary increase would I need to give up my 9-day fortnight and sign a 10-day contract.
I thought for a moment, and told him I'd want an extra $50,000.
He told me that was ridiculous.
I said "Yep, your right. I windsurf on my ROS days. $50,000 is not even close to being enough".
Ive been on 8 day fortnight for a few years. 8-12hr days x 4 depending on workload. Is good.
Im fifo and do 9 day fortnight, monday - fri, monday - thurs and im only doing 10hr days, flying one way on work time.
BP had it, then got rid of it, and then brought it back in 2007 while I was working there. All Chevron employees have this option too. Don't know of any other big companies that offer it.
It's still the same 40 hour week but you work 9 hour days instead of 8 hour days. I work at Chevron and the Wife works at BP so it's nice to have the three day weekends together. In fact - we are taking the monday off and going to bali on our next one!
I can see how it helps to swing the work life balance away from the work side. I currently do 5 day weeks as my company does not offer this arrangement in the UK and it does become monotonous. One of the reasons for coming to Aus is to try and swing the balance more in favour of the life side.
Started work in 1979 with a 9 day fortnight, 16 years old earning $28 a week, but long weekends with every second fri off, that extra day off was awesome, but changed jobs in 88 and went on rotating shifts, random day/arvo/nights, but now have option of working 5 x 8hrs or 4 x 10 hrs, tried both options but the 8's give me more beach time and I can decide which days of the week I want to work, even do an arvo if suits, so have full flexibility and 9 weeks rec leave. Will be taking part-time option in 4 years and work 5 or 6 days a fortnight.
I could not do a mon-fri 9-5 job.
just realised I've been working for 35 years !
Well in my trade it's pretty much standard to do 12hour shifts.....three of them a week. I do three nights and surf everyday yeeeeeoooooooooow 
All big vegetation companies have it written into thier EBA .. Some 1 rdo a moth some 2 a month .. Also aloud is to work the rdo and back the hours and use when ever
my last job had a good work life balance - 2 nights (12 hrs - sleeping. beds, recliners, ice cream in front of the big screen, bbqs, babysitting equipment with alarms), then two twelve hour days then four off. so you worked 2 days out of 8. take four days off and you skip and stay on the cycle. so you get 12 off with only four days taken. got a good nighs sleep on the nights also so during the day in between it was yours also. reasonable coin.
I left after two years though....
mate works for electricity supplier. 9 day fortnight. someone there has a boat called R.D.O
When i did my apprenticeship as a fitter machinist at Barlow marine . We had a 9 day fortnight . So every second friday we worked it was overtime like saturday & then the saturday was double time for the first two hours then double time & a half for the rest of the day .
I was getting full tradesman wages as a second year apprentice so it was really good coin for a young bloke .
