Casual Workers Right to Part-Time or Full-Time Employment
On 1 October 2018 a new standard clause was incorporated into 85 employment awards, allowing eligible casual workers the right to request full-time or part-time employment if they have worked certain regular hours over the prior 12-month period. Most modern awards already have these casual conversion provisions incorporated. Effectively it gives an employee the ability to ‘convert’ casual employment to part-time or full-time employment and receive all the allowable entitlements.
Employers can refuse the request in writing on reasonable grounds, including that it would require a significant adjustment to a casual employee’s hours of work or they could foresee their position would no longer exist in the next 12 months.
These casual conversion clauses are intended to apply to employers within the labour hire sector also.
It is important for businesses to ensure compliance with the obligations where required as recent cases indicate that the costs of non-compliance can be significant.
What should you do?
If you employ casual staff, you should:
Check your applicable Modern Award or Enterprise Agreement to determine your obligations and ensure compliance.
give all casual employees a copy of the conversion clause within the first 12 months of their first engagement. For casual employees already employed as at 1 October 2018, employers must provide them with a copy of the conversion clause by 1 January 2019.
How will the change affect your business?
- Generally speaking, most casual employees want the 25% higher pay and therefore, they will want to stay employed as casuals. As such, this won’t have any impact on your business, as long as you have shown compliance with your obligations.
- Employees that are granted the change to a part-time or full-time classification will then be entitled to annual and personal leave. The cost of these entitlements may be offset by the potential reduction of their hourly rate.
For more information please don’t hesitate to contact us.
