Casual Employment

What is casual employment? What are your rights and what should you expect?

A casual employee is paid per hour, and employed without a guarantee of ongoing or regular work. Example 1 Elliott works a couple of days a week as a casual Architect to supplement his Youth Allowance.  Two hours into one of his shifts, a power failure occurs at the office.  His manager tells him that the power won't be restored any time soon and that he should just go home. Elliott will only be paid for the 2 hours he was at work. If Elliott's contract contained a minimum shift clause, then he would have to be paid according to that clause, despite the fact that he was only at work for 2 of those hours. As you can see, Casual employees have very little (if any) job security, and they also have very little in the way of benefits. Casual employees don't receive most of the entitlements permanent employees do. The aren't eligible for annual leave, sick days, or redundancy pay to name just a few. To compensate for this casual employees are paid a Casual Loading rate on top of their base hourly rate.

What's the usual Casual Loading rate?

The Casual Loading rate in all Modern Awards is 25%. Therefore casual employees covered by a Modern Award receive a 25% increase on the hourly rate a full time employee would receive for that job. For employees not covered by a Modern Award, the casual loading is currently set at 22% (as of 3 June 2011). Sounds simple!  Unfortunately it's not. Because the previous Award system had different Casual Loading rates split by State, industry etc..., the new Modern Award system has what is called a transitional period. This transitional period will attempt to standardise the many different loadings and penalties by the year 2014. In the meantime there is a phasing in period. Example Jane is a casual Pharmacist in New South Wales.  Before the introduction of the Modern Awards, Jane was entitled to a 20% Casual loading under the applicable Award at the time. Jane stopped working in 2009 when her first child was born, but has now decided to return to the workforce, again as a Casual employee.  She will start work in the financial year, 1 July 2011. Jane's casual loading as of 1 July 2011 will be 22%. It is claculated by (new Casual rate) - (old Casual rate) = ‘Transitional Percentage'. Which is  25% - 20% = 5%. The next step is the phasing in of the new loading rates. (Phasing in percentage as at 1 July 2011) of Transitional Percentage = Difference Percentage 60% of 5% = 3%, which finally allows calculation of the current loadings (New Casual rate) - (Difference Percentage) = Casual loading 25% - 3% = 22% Determining the correct loadings is clearly a complicated calculation. If you have a question about the loading you should be on call Workplace Advice and Support on 1300 273 762 for further info.

Am I excluded from anything as a Casual Employee?

Yes. Casual employees miss out on a whole lot of things like paid leave, and guaranteed minimum hours at work, but this is what casual loading is there to offset. Of more concern is the fact that as a casual you are not entitled to notice of termination. The law views casual employees as engaged for one day at a time. In effect this means you can get told today you won't be needed tomorrow and have no recourse to dispute it. This can be addressed expressly in you have a contract of employment.  If you can negotiate a 4 week notice period and get it in writing,  4 weeks notice becomes a contractual obligation. But no rights exist under the NES. Thirdly, casuals are not entitled to redundancy pay, full stop.  Again, while it is conceivable that a particular contract may contain a clause that alters this position, in practice we have never seen it. Fourthly, Casual employees are not entitled to any public holiday pay, unless they are regularly rostered to work on the day that the public holiday happens to fall on. So if you are usually rostered on for Thursday you won't receive any public holiday pay for Good Friday. Fifthly, Casual employees rarely ever receive overtime rates. You work a flat hourly rate, at all hours of the day. Again, some contracts may alter this rule but it is not very common.

What about job security?

Basically, there isn't any. Exceptions exist if there is a contractual clause conferring a notice period to the employee, but there are no automatic rights under the NES.

Do I have ANY Job Protections?

You do, but not as many as permanent employees enjoy. Casual employees who have over 6 months of continuous service with the same employer, and who was employed on a regular and systematic basis and had a reasonable expectation of further regular and systematic employment, may be eligible to make an unfair dismissal application. Also, casual employees are able to make General Protection applications, and in some circumstances they can make Unlawful Termination applications.