EVERY worker should have the right to ask their employer if they can have a better balance between their jobs and home lives TUC general secretary Brendan Barber has told a conference on work/life balance in London.

He said that the right to request flexible working should be extended to everyone.

The government is to consult on extending the right to parents of older children instead of the current restriction to parents of children under the age of six, but Mr Barber complained this had sparked "predictable bleating" from employers.

"Worst of all are the commentators who joined them by saying that such moves are bad for women, because employers will stop giving women good jobs.

"This may be an accurate assessment of their own employers - usually right-wing newspapers - but it is a pretty dismal view.

"It predicts that employers will break the law by discriminating against women.

"It expects employers to cut themselves off from the talents of half the workforce, and all because a woman may simply ask to change her hours - a request which the law makes it pretty easy to refuse.

"Fortunately most employers are not that blinkered and are well aware of the benefits of allowing staff to alter their hours as their commitments change."

Sales director at Bournemouth-based recruitment agency Fresh Recruits Katie Diamond commented: "I am all for the work/life balance and if the job allows for flexible working then good, but it does depend on the nature of the position. For instance, if it's a sales role with core hours between 9 and 5 then the member of staff will have to be there.

"I think flexi-hours are beneficial because, while the statutory hours must be worked, they allow more time to be worked on one day and less the next.

She added: "As a nation we work long hours - the longest in Europe, in fact. In August we reviewed our hours as a business because we felt we were working too long. So now between Monday and Friday we work between 9.00am and 5.30pm and on Fridays we work from 9:00am to 5.00pm. We've found that this has not affected company performance and has made us work more efficiently.

"It goes without saying that this was popular with our staff!"