EMPLOYER GROUPS have voiced their opposition to the Australian Labor Party’s plans to give causal employees the right to convert to permanent employment after a set time, and offer other job entitlements such as paid sick leave and annual holidays but forego a casual loading if they don’t convert
EMPLOYER GROUPS have voiced their opposition to the Australian Labor Party’s plans to give causal employees the right to convert to permanent employment after a set time, and offer other job entitlements such as paid sick leave and annual holidays but forego a casual loading if they don’t convert.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) said that the Labor Party is out of touch with the modern labour market and that its policy unfairly demonises casual employees and their employers.
“This policy would reduce labour market flexibility and the right that a business had when it hired a casual employee to match working hours to commercial needs,” said Peter Hendy, ACCI chief executive.
“It is an ideological response to a manufactured problem – the so-called problem of ‘casual employment for long-term regular employees.’”
He said long-term regular employment in any form isn’t a problem, and was alarmed that any government, or its alternative, saw it as a problem.
Peak mining employers’ group The Australian Mines and Metals Association (AMMA) said Labor’s industrial relations platform was “not in the national interest” and warned its members to prepare for wholesale change to their industrial relations arrangements if Labor was elected to power.
“If the ALP IR policy position becomes a reality, parties external to your workplace may be setting terms and conditions for your business next year,” said association chief executive Steve Knott.
“Members should consider these issues, prepare for possible IR regulation changes and engage in the policy debate with relevant stakeholders where appropriate to do so.”
Shadow Minister for Workplace Relations Craig Emerson, said that Labor would also legislate to ensure that the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) takes into account job security and the need to prevent the misuse of casual employment.
“Employers are not able to refuse unreasonably. In determining reasonableness, the AIRC considers issues like the size and nature of the business,” he said.
Employees who do not want to become permanent can remain casual under Labor’s plans, and provisions would not apply to casuals employed on a short-term, seasonal or irregular basis, according to Emerson.
He cited a recent report by The Chifley Research Centre, which found that the trend towards casualisation of the workforce is not in the long-term interest of employees or employers.
Prepared by academics from the universities of Adelaide and Sydney and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, it said the number of poor quality jobs was increasing and people spent many more years employed as casual or part-time staff.
“The casual loading does not appear to result in higher earnings for those who give up their leave in exchange for such a pay loading,” the report said.
It acknowledged that slightly higher casual rates suit some, but many face limited job security, low or unpredictable pay, poor career paths and less working rights.
“No Australian industrial relations body or government set out – at least in a publicly articulated way – to create a labour market where one in four Australians are without annual leave or sick leave, despite extended periods of employment in many cases,” it said.
“Much casual work in Australia is part-time and much of it is unstable in terms of predictability of earnings, working time, skill, representation, vulnerability to occupational health and safety hazards, predictable work and work type and much of it results in low pay.”
The report, Securing Quality Employment, found that ‘casualisation’ remains a problem for more than one-quarter of women over 25 and is growing among young non-student and “prime and mature-aged” males.
“Across Australia, casual workers are concentrated in the two occupations where over half of all women are employed: basic and intermediate clerical, and sales and service workers. Over half of all women in elementary clerical, sales and service jobs identify as casual.”
While the ACCI’s Hendy said the report self-defines a so-called problem in order to justify a regulatory outcome, ACTU President Sharan Burrow welcomed its findings, claiming that high rates of casualisation are bad for the economy and families.
“Labor’s new plan is a major initiative that will help fix the collapse in job security that has been caused by the casualisation of Australia’s workforce in recent years,” she said.
“There are now 2.2 million casual workers in Australia who have no access to paid sick leave or even annual holidays.”
She said the decline in skills development that is associated with casual employment posed serious risks to productivity that will harm the economy.
“Labor’s new policy to give a stronger charter to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission supports more job security for casuals and addresses one of the fastest growing problems in the Australian workforce,” she said.
“More secure and predictable patterns of work, as well as access to paid leave are essential for achieving a better balance between work and family.”
