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Labor to give casuals new rights to full-time employment in move to improve job security
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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Please may someone explain this a little bit more for me? My understanding has been that casuals are a temporary solution to fill gaps in the various sectors of employment.
Why would we need a plan to make them permanent? Would the onus not be on the employer to decide to ask if they would want full time work if they had the ability to do so? Or is this purely a means to prevent employers from extorting casuals?
In some sectors such as universities where my partner works casualisation is quite clearly a permanent solution.
There are probably some situations where that applies, but I'd bet it's actually very rare. It costs a lot of money to hire someone, they need to be trained/etc and a lot of that burden on the employer is the same whether you pay them 1 hour a week or 40 hours a week. I'm pretty sure employers want each individual employee to work as many hours as possible - you will always get better productivity from one person working 40 hours a week than from ten people working 4 hours a week. It costs exactly the same in wages, but the output is better with longer hours (up to a point - once people work overtime there are burnout/etc issues, and productivity drops).
There is no limit on the number of hours a casual employee can work, and if at all possible most employers would like that number to be 40 hours a week just like full time staff. A lot of "casual" staff do work 40 hours a week (I do).
Full time employees are entitled to 6 weeks of paid leave (combination sick pay and holiday) every year.
Casual employees who work "full time" are not entitled to any paid leave at all.
As far as I know that is basically the only difference between the two. Another commonly cited reason is it's easier to fire a casual employee but that's only really true if the casual employee is not working regular hours. If they're rostered on regularly they get the same protections as a full time employee.
The other difference is hourly wages are (or at least should be) higher for casual employees, but your annual pay is (or should be) exactly the same if you take six weeks of "unpaid" leave.
My employer gave me a choice, and I chose casual. I like the extra hourly pay - six weeks is a lot of money and it earns quite a bit of interest (especially these days!) in a savings account waiting for my next holiday. It also encourages me to go on holidays where I don't spend much money. Camping for example.
It is easier to apply for loans/etc if you're full time... that's the only benefit I can think of.
The 25% casual loading is calculated to take in notice of termination and redundancy pay too. Lots of people resign and fewer are made redundant, so wouldn't get notice or redundancy pay anyway. That means in most circumstances, employees are better off in a pure money sense as casuals.
The big downside is if things are quiet at work you aren't guaranteed any hours. As you mention, that also creates a hurdle when applying for loans.
To extend on this, which is accurate, there's a few extra things that are worth mentioning.
Unless you've signed a contract that specifically changes these (and which you would need to be compensated for to make the contract legal):
Full time employees get long service leave, which only kicks in for full time employees after several years.
Certain industries in South Australia such as Electricians, Plumbers etc have transferrable long service leave (it carries across employers in what is effectively a gig job).
Full time employees are paid for public holidays, which they are not obliged to work.
A full time employee basically cannot be fired without cause - only made redundant.
If you are made redundant, you will be paid a settlement.
This is why it's easier to get loans etc by the way, the bank has reason to believe you'll continue your employment.
As an aside, the paid sick leave is pretty important.
If I get sick, I don't go to work and therefore don't spread that illness to my coworkers, and I can still pay my rent and buy food.
A casual employee has to decide if they are sick enough to forgo income for one or more days.
Unscrupulous individuals taking "mental health days", where they're not sick, has been a big part in the movement to casualising the workforce (in my opinion).
That's generally true for casual employees as well. It's just that one of the "causes" might be "we don't have a shift for you this week".
That one isn't always available to the employer though. Where I work, and I'm casual by the way, I can see six months of work on my schedule. If I were dismissed with "we don't have any work for you" then I'm pretty sure Fair Work would have something to say about it.
yeah that's the point you lost me.
10 days off, they don't roll over. They're owed me per year. Be it for my mental health or physical I am owed those days
A business that penalises its workforce because said business doesn't like the fact owed leave is being utilised need to be shot in the face.
So the system should be changed so that you can take the days with notice. 🤷
The problem is people taking days off without notice, regularly.
As currently implemented, you feel ripped off.
If you just don't turn up on a day leaving me short staffed, you're letting me down (my targets won't be met), you're letting your co-workers down (they end up picking up your slack or getting called in on their day off at the last minute).
FFS, let me know ahead of time (psst, I'm going to take a "sick" day on Friday) and maybe I won't be grumpy.
How is that rage inducing inconvenience you describe any different from the inconvenience of a legit sick day though. I mean outside your head.
If a workplace workflow collapses from a callout, that's on poor management. If a workplace can't complete deliverables without one person, that's on management.
And ironically, cutting staff down so sharply that you end up with these scenarios is what causes a higher number of callouts due to burnout and stress
I've already explained above why a legit sick day is important, it stops your staff having to choose between being paid and doing the right thing - not spreading the illness.
Unscrupulous business owners demanded too much of their staff, including working whilst sick - so the law was changed so that those staff would be protected.
Unscrupulous employees abused this, so a limit was put in place - you get ten days a year.
But somehow, you've decided that a staff protection is actually extra days off, that are being stolen from you if you don't get sick!
"in your own head" as you put it.
I'm not currently managing a team, but when I did, I never asked for a sick note from the doctor, what a waste of time and money.
People with your sense of entitlement cause nonsense like that.
No one is entitled to your work for free.
You aren't entitled to payment for nothing.
There's a balance here, ever changing, with sloppy vague laws applied post facto in an effort to maintain it.
I'm not against changing it, but taking your sick days as unplanned leave is against the spirit in which those sick days were bargained.
Try that again without ad hominen attacks.
These are obligations. Period. You want to do business in Australia, you play by these rules.
There are actually no limits whatsoever on how many times you can call in sick. None. While your comment on overwork and unscrupulous employers is correct, there were absolutely no 'unscrupulous employees' abusing the system to the point where it had to be capped, literally you called in sick, you got no pay, or if your workplace paid you, that was a private arrangement. Mandated paid sick leave was written into its very existence as a limited number of days right from the start - and businesses decided to play to the legal bare minimum.
Those ten days are factored into your annual wages btw. So yes, they do belong to me.
Also: it's incredibly hilarious that you're trying to be denigratory going on about a 'sense of entitlement' when we're discussing literal, legally defined entitlements.
Falsely claiming that what I said was ad hominem is itself ad hominem.
You keep doing you mate, I'm sure chucking sickies is the least annoying thing you do at work.
you can't help yourself, can you?
Thanks for the detailed breakdown, it makes sense about what you've just been saying. It stands to reason that government should put in more protections for casuals rather than just being offered a full time position by an employer for those that choose to stay casual.