Politics - and Employment !

One thing is abundantly certain - the Labor party is woefully ignorant of how small business works. It wants to pass a law to make casual employees automatically become permanent  staff once they complete six months continuous work with the same employer.  The Australian Council of Trade Unions has announced that it will enthusiastically  campaign on this basis.

In a utopian society, everyone would be a permanent employee with automatic access to benefits such as sick leave, annual holidays on full pay and even long service leave.  They would therefore have a predictable pay packet coming in each week which would underpin gaining a home mortgage and other forms of financial stability.   Unfortunately, in many businesses the employee need is sporadic, only exists on certain days of the week - and is at peak for only a short period each day.

Industries where the work load is constant and spread evenly over the working day tend to employ permanent staff because they can be productively engaged providing the services their employer needs.  This continuity is lacking in hospitality, retail and health care.

The need for casuals to fill the gaps is illustrated by the rate paid for each hour of work.  When the salary of a permanent employee is broken down into an hourly rate, the casual receives more per hour to compensate for the benefits he or she does not receive.  At present, those rates are increased if the hours worked are on a Saturday or Sunday, or outside the usual business day.

Traditionally, small business fills these peak load gaps with casual staff.  Often, this is a mix of permanent and casual.  A restaurant may service its needs with one permanent employee and supplement that busy twelve noon to two pm lunch break with several casuals.  It would be unprofitable to employ all those people as permanent staff for a full days work.

This proposal seems to reek of ambush tactics.  An unwary employer keeping the same casuals for more than six months suddenly finds they automatically gain permanent staff status.  It is more likely to increase the casual staff turnover as canny employers spread the work over a wider employee pool to ensure that nobody reaches that permanency threshold.

The real problem in the casual employment world - is under employment.  Most casuals would like more hours but by the nature of this form of employment that usually means having more than one job in work segments with a different need time scale.  Obviously, individual casuals bring different work skills and need training to meet their employers needs, but this work flexibility is the main way service demand can be met at an economical cost.

There is another reason many employers prefer casuals to permanent staff.    In the event of a business downturn,  shedding permanent staff can be costly.  Termination may be challenged in court and the courts often make very strange determinations.  It is not unusual for such employees to gain a reversal or a settlement that is not justified by the economic conditions prevailing.  Many employers avoid that risk by sticking with casuals.

This proposal seems to be more a meeting of political doctrine than an attempt to reform employment policy.  It seeks to create populist undertones more than create jobs that are financially sustainable. It is unlikely that this proposal will proceed beyond parliamentary debate !