For five years, Sandy has been part of the class of workers who, despite working 30 to 40 hours a week, go without sick or holiday pay.
In that time, the 47-year-old casual employee says he has only taken one day off – when his mother had a heart attack. Home ownership has also remained out of reach due to the difficulty getting a loan from the bank as a casual.
“This is the gift of casualisation,” he says.
But that could soon change for Sandy and thousands of others. On Thursday, the Albanese government passed its second tranche of workplace reforms, which included a pathway for casuals to convert to a permanent role if they wish to do so.
The laws were backed by unions but opposed by some employer groups that claimed they would make it more unattractive to hire casuals and hamper flexibility for workers.
Prof John Buchanan, a industrial relations expert at the University of Sydney, says the broader reforms – which also include improved rights for gig economy workers – are a “huge win” for employees and signalled to employers they must be more accountable.
He says the casual conversion laws may help break the oxymoron of the “permanent casual”, which has become entrenched in Australia’s workplaces.
“What employers had done was they said, ‘Well, we want to call you a casual because that means we can sidestep big obligations around leave pay, and in some cases, long service leave, and avoid redundancy rights’, so [the changes] are a pretty big deal,” he says.
There are 2.5 million casual workers in Australia, accounting for almost a quarter of the workforce, while an estimated 850,000 of those have regular work arrangements, according to the industrial relations minister, Tony Burke.
The new laws will ensure workers who are hired as casuals but work regular or predictable shifts are offered to switch to a permanent role. They will be able to apply for conversion after six months of regular working arrangements, and after 12 months if hired by a small business.
Employers will be able to refuse an employee request for conversion on “fair and reasonable operational grounds”.
And to win support for the new laws, Labor agreed to amendments from the independent ACT senator David Pocock that mean employers won’t be required to provide detailed reasons for denying a worker’s request. Workers will have the option to appeal against the decision at the Fair Work Commission.
Employers also won’t be required to proactively offer workers to convert to a permanent role after 12 months of regular working arrangements.
Fiona McDonald, an expert in industrial relations at the Australia Institute, is concerned the amendments have slightly weakened the ability for casual workers to enforce their new rights.
“It remains to be seen whether it will operate effectively,” she says.
“There is a power imbalance in that … it’s difficult for casuals who have no certainty of ongoing work … They may be worried that they’d lose their jobs if they put in a request that they thought might be refused.”
She added that unionised workforces in larger businesses would probably have more success.
Sandy, who did not want his surname used, says he has lost count of how many times he has asked his employer for a permanent role. Each time, the pathology courier says he has been told it would mean his regular 30 to 40 hours a week would be cut, so he has stuck to his casual position.
“Anyone who comes to them asking for [permanent] employment, they basically try to discourage them one way or another,” Sandy says.
He is heartened he will have the backing of the new laws when he next asks, saying job security and entitlements are worth the trade-off in his casual loading. But he’s still worried about the response.
“They are a large company, I’m worried they’ll still find a way to say no,” he says.
McDonald stresses the importance of an amendment put forward by the Greens to exclude teachers and lecturers on fixed-term contracts from the new definition.
“It’s quite clear now that you’re either a casual worker or a fixed-contract worker,” she says.
Shortly after the new legislation was announced, the Australian Industry Group chief executive, Innes Willox, described the casual conversion rules as “a radical new restriction on the ability to engage casual employees to work regular and predictable hours”.
On Wednesday, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry released a joint statement from its CEOs saying the changes would make hiring casuals unattractive and stymie flexibility for workers. It says the broader reforms were “rushed and flawed” and would harm small businesses.
Buchanan and McDonald describe those claims as overblown.
“The point of the legislation is to target the misuse of casual status, where employers use casual status because it’s cheaper when the [worker] should be employed as permanent,” McDonald says.
