Tax Office staff believed they were backing a workplace deal that would stop bosses rolling out hot-desking when they voted up a new enterprise agreement this year, the industrial umpire has heard.
As a skirmish over an Australian Taxation Office move to adopt the workplace trend entered a Fair Work Commission hearing in Melbourne earlier this month, unions argued the agency revealed the plan after the industrial deal had been reached.
Hot-desking has met firm resistance from the two unions representing ATO staff, which argue the agency cannot adopt the office fit-outs for all employees under its industrial agreement.
Fiona Knowles, representing the Australian Services Union, said the ATO failed in attempts to remove clauses exempting non-field work staff from hot-desking, an office plan where workers find a new desk each day and pack their belongings into lockers before going home.
When staff ended a prolonged bargaining dispute over pay and conditions by supporting the latest industrial deal in June, they had rejected three proposed agreements that removed or changed the clause.
The ATO had not given evidence to Fair Work it told unions or staff of the Gosford hot-desking plan in enterprise agreement negotiations, she said.
"There's also no indication or even suggestion that the employees were advised that a decision had been made to hot-desk at Gosford," Ms Knowles said.
Speaking for the Community and Public Sector Union, Aiden Nash said that while the ATO had been open about its wish to introduce hot-desking, unions were clear they opposed it in negotiations.
The unions argue the workplace deal only allows the Tax Office to require staff doing fieldwork to share desks.
John Snaden, speaking for the ATO, denied the enterprise agreement barred the agency from adopting the workplace fit-out and said it had agreed with unions their differences over hot-desking were unresolved and bound for Fair Work.
"Gosford was always going to be a shared accommodation site," he said.
"The intention for Gosford was clearly and consistently put from as early as December last year and the unions can't pretend that they were blindsided because they never got some formal notice that the ATO executive had ticked off on it."
The ATO told staff the deal did not ban hot-desking and workers had accepted this in supporting it, he said.
Mr Sladen said the Tax Office had only tried to remove clauses in the enterprise agreement about hot-desking previously because they weren't allowed under the public service commission's workplace bargaining policy.
The Fair Work Commission reserved its decision on the dispute.
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