Casuals, permanents and the weird world of industrial relations ‘flexibility’

Did you hear about Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke’s plan, released this morning, to convert casual workers to permanent, stripping them of the benefits of working casually, simultaneously both cutting wages and increasing business costs and causing widespread unemployment?

Employers are keen to let you know how awful it is. The Business Council of Australia (BCA) says it “would engulf businesses, particularly small businesses, in red tape and paperwork“. The Australian Industry Group (Ai Group) says the changes would “inevitably increase business costs and risks, reduce investment and reduce employment”, and were “unfathomable and economically dangerous”. Wesfarmers attacked the changes.

A recurring word in the business lamentation is “flexibility” — a word Jennifer Westacott of the BCA used nine times in an op-ed. Ai Group’s chief executive Innes Willox preferred “agility” and Wesfarmers also went with “flexibility”.

If you believe employers, the government is planning to force people to stop working as casuals and sign on as permanent employees.

“Restricting casual employment would make it harder for people to access a form of work that delivers the financial benefit of a 25% casual loading and the capacity to take on additional work when it suits them,” Willox wrote. “These statistics highlight that it would be folly and unfair for the government to introduce restrictions on casual employment that would harm businesses and employees.”

None of this seems to accord with the changes actually proposed by Burke, which involve casuals who’ve been employed on full-time hours for six months to have the option to convert to permanent employment. By common agreement, only a small fraction of casuals — 1% to 2% according to one employer group — will decide to trade in the higher pay from leave loading for actual leave and certainty.

It’s also hard to see how any business costs would be increased in moving from paying leave loading to paying leave — in fact, Willox seems to want us to believe that the changes would simultaneously take 25% leave loading away from casuals and push up business costs.

What the changes do mean is that casual workers who are working effectively as permanent full-time employees would have, erm, flexibility to swap leave loading for greater job security — rather than employers having the flexibility to keep people working as full-time employees as casuals.

Once again, it seems employers love flexibility, but only when it’s flexibility for them.