Labor unveils industrial relations reforms for casual workers
The government plans to implement reforms enabling casual workers to switch to permanent work more easily.
The Albanese government will look to introduce reforms later this year to give casual workers working regular hours the right to switch to permanent work if they choose to, the Minister for Workplace Relations, Tony Burke, has announced.
Mr Burke said while permanent work won’t be suitable for all workers there are some casual workers who would prefer having the security of permanent work.
“We’ve got more people now working multiple jobs than we’ve had at any other time in Australia’s history, and we want those people who really need job security to have a pathway to be able to get it,” Mr Burke told Sky News in an interview yesterday.
“There are some people, and it is a minority, but there are some people who now work casual, who are trying to hold up the expenses for an entire household.
“For those people, some of them would rather, if they’re working completely regular hours, as though they were a permanent, would rather switch to being a permanent, lose the loading, but actually, on an ongoing basis, have the guarantee of the hours and have the guarantee of leave if they’re sick or if they’re caring for it. We’re wanting to create that right.”
The Australian Council of Trade Unions has been one of the industry groups advocating for a pathway to permanency for casual workers.
ACTU research released in May found that casual workers earned $11.59 less per hour than their permanent counterparts, representing a pay gap of 28.6 per cent.
When comparing workers at the same skill level or within the same occupation, the pay gap between casuals and permanents is between $3.55 to $3.84 an hour or about 11 per cent.
“This is despite casuals being owed an additional loading of up to 25 per cent,” said ACTU.
ACTU secretary Sally McManus previously said that too many casuals were casual in name only and that changes made by the Coalition government in early 2021 had led to the “erosion of job security”.
“The majority of casuals work regular hours, week in, week out and have been in their job for more than a year,” said Ms McManus.
“Australian workers deserve reliable jobs so they have reliable incomes. Big business has used loopholes in our work laws to make what should be secure jobs into casualised, insecure work. It is a way of driving down wages and putting all the stress onto workers.”
The reforms for casual workers will be introduced later this year alongside other industrial relations reforms previously announced by the government including the ‘same job, same pay’ reforms and wage theft reforms.
The Business Council of Australia and the Recruitment, Consulting and Staffing Association recently slammed the same job, same pay measures, stating they would impose “unreasonable costs and administrative burdens”.
RCSA chief executive Charles Cameron said the measures would be a “compliance minefield” and unfairly impact the labour hire and professional contractor sector.
“Requiring staffing firms to source, assess and apply the variable pay rates of their client’s employees across every industry and every workplace scenario is unfeasible and unfair,” said Mr Cameron.
“What is most frustrating is that it creates the problem across thousands of scenarios where labour hire workers are already paid more than their direct hire counterparts.”
The minister rejected suggestions put forward by business advocates that the same job, same pay measures would lead to a system where workers with far less experience would receive the same pay and benefits.
“I can categorically rule that out. I know that’s been the subject of the entire advertising campaign. Business have been told privately and publicly that that is not what the government’s doing,” said Mr Burke.
“That’s up to business how they want to campaign, I get that. But what I’m wanting to close is the labour hire loophole. What I’m wanting to close is a loophole where an employer has already agreed that for a particular worker with a particular level of experience, there should be a minimum rate of pay – and then labour hire is used to undercut the rate of pay that they just agreed to. That’s the loophole that I want to close.”
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