Aussie businesses have no respect and must think their staff are stupid

It would be a lie for people to say they haven't pulled sickies in the past because let's face it, everyone has pulled a sickie at one time or another.  People tend to use their annual leave when they run out of sick days and need to take a day off.

What if you are legally a casual employee though?  If you're legally a casual employee you have no access to sick pay.  You have no access to holiday pay.  Forget about taking any time off.  And on the off chance you do get sick then lucky for you, you're going to have to go to work sick.

First off, I want to define what a "casual employee" is in the legal sense and then I want to define what it is in practice.

Legally, according to Fair Work Australia, a casual employee:

• has no guaranteed hours of work
• usually works irregular hours
• doesn't get paid sick or annual leave
• can end employment without notice, unless notice is required by a registered agreement, award or employment contract. 

I want to discuss the first two points in particular.  Many companies are actually rorting the system.  How?  Well, although some industries are legitimately casual like acting work or seasonal work, there are many jobs where the employer will classify their staff as casual even though they are not actually casual.  What I mean by this is that although you're legally casual you probably do work the same days each week and you probably do have around the same hours each week, so why are you being called casual?  My bet is that employers don't realise that people have bills to pay.

So let's talk about that point for a while shall we?!  I don't know about you but I pay rent, and I have to pay rent every week, but when you're casual the reality is, your employer could turn around one day and say, "yeah I don't feel like giving you work today", so what that would mean is that you have no hours.  Generally speaking they don't do this though and generally speaking you will have approximately the same number of hours each week.  If you have approximately the same number of hours a week then in practice you're not actually casual, you'd be part time or full time.  Casual employment is supposed to mean that you do not have ongoing employment with a firm according to the Fair Work website, but many casuals actually do have ongoing work.

Employers will argue that the higher casual loading compensates but it doesn't.  It doesn't compensate because of the lack of security and it doesn't compensate because of the nature of legally casual employment.  Legally casual employment means, as I've said, tomorrow the employer could turn around and say "sorry we don't need you", so anyone with half a brain would prepare for that.  They would get ahead on bills, but getting ahead on bills doesn't mean they stop pouring in.  Financial commentators and advisers will say you should aim to have a window of about three months where you could have no income and be okay.  I have a window of about five weeks at the moment but that's a very tight window. 

This means that those who are legally casual have to act as if they could potentially have no work tomorrow and it means they cannot put money away for if they get sick, plus if you're legally casual then you may be scared to take sick or holiday leave and the employer doesn't legally have to keep the job open for you.  They can let you go at five minutes notice.  Most employers are decent and wouldn't do this but some rogue employers might.

Then there are periods where businesses shut down that you have to prepare for.  Let's take Christmas for example.  Over Christmas casual employees may have two weeks where they don't work so that means they have two weeks of no income, and as I've said, if you're casual you can't put money away for holidays because you have to get ahead on bills and rent or you potentially end up homeless.

So what other drawbacks does being casual have?  Well, apart from not being able to take holidays and having to go to work sick it means you can't do things like rent apartments, you can't take out hire purchases, forget about saving, you've gotta get ahead on bills (which is a form of saving admittedly) and forget about calling in sick because your job may not be there if you do. 

The bottom line and the major point I'm trying to make here is that employers need to stop using the term "casual" when some legally casual staff are not actually casual and do actually have ongoing work with a firm.  Not allowing staff to take holidays and forcing staff to go to work sick doesn't boost productivity and it will lead to higher staff turnover because nobody would put up with those conditions for more than a short term.

The casual loading does not compensate for instability.  Would it really be so hard for employers to put aside 8% (this is what it is in NZ) and five days (based on what you work, so if you work 20 hours a week, then one day would be approx 4 hours) sick pay each year to give casuals some type of stability and security?  This may not occur to employers but when you're casual there are so many things you cannot do.  It's manipulating the system to classify a staff member as casual when in practice that is not actually what they are.  Or would it be so hard to say, "okay, if you have more than 10 hours a week on average for 2-3 months we will classify you as part time flexible"?  If flexibility is what employers want then why not put a clause into the contract saying, "you will work as required and will receive holiday and sick pay based on your work".

What it comes down to is truly casual work is not ongoing, truly casual work means you don't have expectations in the employment.  Truly casual work means you don't have to work every week.  In reality, a lot of casuals are probably actually part time or full time flexible so classify as such or you will lose your good staff who will demand better conditions so they can pay their bills and have security and do basic things like take a day off when they're legitimately sick and rent an apartment.  These are basic things.  Having a roof over your head is a basic human right but people can't rent apartments or houses without stability and it is high time the law was reviewed because it's hurting staff, and making them go to work when sick does NOT boost productivity and it actually means they take longer to get better than if they were able to take ONE day off.