Casual employees who have worked for their employer for 12 months need to be offered the option to convert to full-time or part-time (permanent) employment by their employer.
A long-term casual employee is a casual employee who has worked regularly and systematically for an employer over 12 months, and they are reasonably expected to continue this arrangement.
About 850,000 casual workers who have regular hours will be eligible for permanency, and can choose to give up their casual loading rates in exchange for sick pay and holiday leave. Workers won't receive any backpay, and they won't be forced to convert from casual to permanent if they don't want to.
What are the maximum hours for a shift? In Australia, the maximum number of ordinary hours a casual employee can work is 12 hours in a day or shift. A casual employee must have time off after this and there must be time for meal breaks. This averages about 38 hours over a 4-week roster cycle or a 9.5 hour week.
Furthermore, if a team member is truly a casual employee as per the Fair Work Ombudsman's (FWO) criteria, then termination of that team member can occur without notice. Casual employees can also leave without providing any notice to their employer.
Casuals are not required to provide notice when terminating their employment under the Fair Work Act. However, if a modern Award, Enterprise Agreement or employment contract applies to you, it may provide different notice requirements.
This is because the very nature of casual employment is that the employment relationship effectively ends after each shift. Unless an industrial instrument or modern award says otherwise, your business can simply stop offering further shifts if you wish to terminate a casual employee's employment.
The right to refuse
Some employment contracts may specify a minimum notice period for refusing a shift, such as 24 or 48 hours. While there is no legal requirement for casual employees to provide a specific amount of notice, it is generally considered good practice to give your employer as much notice as possible.
Long term casuals are casual employees who have worked on a casual basis for a long period of time. Long term casuals have the same employment rights as any casual worker as well as additional entitlements as a result of their ongoing work.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) says that a normal work shift is no more than 8 consecutive hours in a day, with each shift split by at least 8 hours of rest. A normal workweek is 5 such work days. However, this is not binding. OSHA does not penalize employers who demand more.
An employee can work a maximum of 38 hours in a week unless an employer asks them to work reasonable extra hours.
If you're a casual, you're covered by the following standards: You're allowed to take two days unpaid carer's leave and two days unpaid compassionate leave for each occasion that such leave is needed. The maximum hours you can work in a week is 38 (plus any 'reasonable' additional hours).
Casual employees don't get paid time off, but can ask their employer about taking unpaid leave for holidays.
Full-time employees have more entitlements compared to casual employees e.g. annual leave, sick leave, maternity leave etc. Your business will always need to pay salaries, even during quiet periods in your business. You will be responsible for your employee's training and professional development.
So, Can a Casual Employee Claim Unfair Dismissal? In short, a casual employee may claim for unfair dismissal provided they worked on a 'regular and systemic' basis with a reasonable expectation of their employment continuing.
Fact: If you employ full-time or permanent part-time employees, you cannot send them home without pay just because it's quiet. If you employ casual staff, you can send them home as long as they have completed or are paid for the minimum number of hours as defined under their award or agreement.
Do part-time and casual employees get super? Yes. Under superannuation guarantee legislation, all employers must pay a minimum of 11% super for all eligible staff, whether they're full-time, part-time or casual.
Casual Employees
A casual employee is generally a person who is 'engaged to work as such', for a minimum number of hours per shift (generally, it is either a minimum of 3 or 4 hours).
Notify the casual employee as early as possible (at least 24 hours' notice if possible) by phone call or text message (request response to ensure the message has been read) of the cancellation of the shift.
Despite work etiquette and standards, no laws require employees to give any notice whatsoever – let alone two weeks – before quitting. While breached contracts may impact compensation or trigger a lawsuit, there aren't any legal protections for employers when employees decide to leave.
If you have a second job your second employer is required to withhold tax at the higher 'no tax-free threshold' rate. This reduces the likely hood of you having a tax debt at the end of the financial year.
Quiet quitting is when employees continue to put in the minimum amount of effort to keep their jobs, but don't go the extra mile for their employer. This might mean not speaking up in meetings, not volunteering for tasks, and refusing to work overtime. It might also result in greater absenteeism.
Full time and part time employees generally accrue entitlements, but casual employees typically don't. This means when an employee changes to a casual basis, if they are no longer entitled to paid leave, any unused leave will need to be paid out.