Abstract
This chapter examines on-demand (or ‘on-call’) work in Australia, understood as work arrangements in which the worker agrees to be available for work and is called into work as and when she/he is needed by the employer. We focus on the two main types of on-demand work: (a) zero hours work arrangements; and (b) minimum-hour work arrangements. Both are highly precarious forms of work, linked to negative consequences for workers. On-demand work has been neglected in much employment relations research in Australia, but it embraces a substantial minority of the workforce and constitutes a significant challenge for research and policy. The chapter outlines the emergence of on-demand work within regulatory gaps associated with casual work and permanent part-time work. It summarizes what is known about on-demand work and on-demand workers, drawing both on secondary labour force statistics and on case-study evidence in selected industries and enterprises. It concludes by noting the surprising lack of effective regulatory responses and by suggesting principles for future reform.
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Notes
- 1.
‘On-call’ is a familiar term, but it is interpreted narrowly to refer just to after-hours availability amongst professional workers such as medical personnel or IT consultants. We therefore prefer to use the less familiar synonym of ‘on-demand’ to refer to the subject-matter of this chapter.
- 2.
Awards are legally-binding documents specifying job classifications, minimum rates of pay and minimum conditions of employment for employees at industry or sector level. They are set down by permanent, independent quasi-judicial tribunals, such as the federal Fair Work Commission (FWC), generally in response to applications from interested parties, including trade unions and employer associations. In their heyday, awards were a vehicle for generalising gains, mainly achieved through collective bargaining by strongly organised workers, throughout the workforce. This dynamic was eliminated by reforms in the early 1990s, which reinterpreted awards as a safety net that was distinct from a new stream of ‘enterprise bargaining’. The residualization of awards offers a good example of ‘institutional conversion’ in the process of neoliberal change (Baccaro and Howell 2011; Buchanan and Oliver 2016). Differences amongst awards remain important and contribute to uneven protection for employees (Bray and Underhill 2011; Charlesworth and Heron 2012).
- 3.
‘Minimum shift engagements’ constitute an important working-time protection but they should not be confused with guaranteed minimum hours. They only provide a guarantee of minimum payment once the worker has been called in and commences work. Moreover, a provision for minimum shift payments does not resolve problems of short notice of changes, including cancellation of shifts, which are communicated before the worker arrives at the workplace. Protection in this respect will depend on the rules concerning notice of changes to rosters that are specified in the award (or agreement).
- 4.
The extent of non-compliance in relation to casual employees is reflected in ABS data on the casual loading. Although a casual loading is prescribed in labour regulation, only half (49.1%) of all casual employees say that they receive a casual loading, while 34.3% say that they do not receive a casual loading and 16.5% say that they do not know if they receive it or not (ABS 2012; see also Pocock et al. 2004, 130).
- 5.
Official statistics in Australia generally distinguish, within the category of employees, two groups: ‘permanent’ and ‘casual’ employees. The distinction, drawing on important aspects of the practice of casual employment (Campbell and Brosnan 2005, 4), is framed in terms of access to paid leave entitlements, which is measured by means of survey questions on whether the employee is entitled in their job to paid annual leave and paid sick leave (where those who answered ‘no’ to both questions are classified as casual). The two categories have been re-labelled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) as ‘employees with leave entitlements’ and ‘employees without paid leave entitlements’, but the categories are regarded as proxies for ‘permanent’ and ‘casual’ (ABS 2013), and we continue to use the latter terms when referring to ABS data. In this bipartite framework, fixed-term employees, understood as employees with an employment contract that terminates on a specified date or on completion of a set task, are swallowed up in either one of the two main categories (mostly within the category of ‘employees with leave entitlements’).
- 6.
It is necessary to keep in mind that any job is a bundle of different elements, some of which may well be appreciated by the workers, even if the on-demand aspects and wage levels are resented. For example, care workers in disability services are often intensely committed to their job and appreciate the opportunity to make a difference to the lives of those who require care (Macdonald et al. 2018).
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Janine Berg, Valerio de Stefano, Martine Humblet and Jon Messenger from INWORK for encouragement to take up the topic, when the first author was a Visiting Scholar at the ILO in Geneva.
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Campbell, I., Macdonald, F., Charlesworth, S. (2019). On-demand Work in Australia. In: O’Sullivan, M., et al. Zero Hours and On-call Work in Anglo-Saxon Countries. Work, Organization, and Employment. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-6613-0_4
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