On-call and related forms of casual workin New Zealand and Australia
Iain Campbell

CONDITIONS OF WORK AND EMPLOYMENT SERIES No. 102
INWORK
Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

Inclusive Labour Markets, Labour Relationsand Working Conditions BranchOn-call and related forms of casual workin New Zealand and Australia

Iain Campbell

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE - GENEVA
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Conditions of work and employment series ; no. 102, ISSN: 2226-8944 (print); 2226-8952 (web pdf)

First published 2018

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Table of contents
PREFACE...........................................................................................................................................................IV
1.

KEYCONCEPTS:ONǦCALL,MINIMUMǦHOUR,ZEROǦHOUR,CASUALWORKERS.................1ǦǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤͳǦǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤʹ ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤͶ

2.

ADESCRIPTIVEPROFILE.....................................................................................................................5ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤͷ ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤͳͳ ǣ     ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤʹͲ

3.

IMPACTFORWORKERS.....................................................................................................................21ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤʹͳ  ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤʹʹ    ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤʹͷ   ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤʹͷ ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤʹ͸ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤʹ͸  ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤʹͻǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤ͵ͳ

4.

EMPLOYERSANDONǦCALLWORK.................................................................................................32

5.

CONSEQUENCESFORBUSINESSESANDSOCIETYATLARGE..................................................34

6.

NEWREGULATORYINITIATIVES....................................................................................................36ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤ͵͸ ǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤǤͶͳ

7.

CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................44

APPENDIXA:LEGALUNDERSTANDINGSINNEWZEALANDANDAUSTRALIA..........................45
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.................................................................................................................................51
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................................52
DATASOURCES..............................................................................................................................................62
CONDITIONSOFWORKANDEMPLOYMENTSERIES..........................................................................63

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

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PrefaceThis report examines on-call and related forms of casual work in two selected industrialised societies:
New Zealand and Australia.
New Zealand and Australia represent promising national case-studies for investigation of these forms of
employment. Both are liberal market economies, which face problems of increased labour market
inequality, including a high incidence of insecure or precarious work (Howe et al 2012; NZCTU 2013).
Though insecure and precarious work can emerge in a bewildering variety of forms, what is called here
on-call work, including zero-hour work, appears to be particularly prominent in both countries. Perhaps
most important, both countries deserve extended discussion because of recent regulatory efforts aimed attackling the negative effects of on-call and related forms of casual work. New Zealand has attracted
international attention because of 2016 legislation that introduces a requirement for guaranteed minimum
hours in certain employment contracts and thereby prohibits at least one version of zero-hour contracts.
Australia has been reluctant to introduce statutory initiatives on employment standards, but has
experimented with other regulatory measures, including a union claim before the Fair Work Commission,
decided in mid-2017, which sought to strengthen and extend existing rights for casual workers, in termsof both minimum engagement periods and conversion to permanent employment after completion of aqualifying period.
The report is structured as follows. The next section (2) introduces the basic concepts used in this report.
It defines on-call workers, distinguishing between ‘zero-hour’ and ‘minimum-hour’ versions of on-call
work, and considers the overlap of on-call work with ‘casual’ work, both in a broad historical sense andin the more specific sense of casual as a distinct employment category within the regulatory structure in
the two countries. Section 3 delves into extant quantitative and qualitative data in order to build anelementary descriptive profile of on-call and related forms of casual work in each country. Section 4
discusses the impact of on-call work for workers, using a framework couched in terms of six dimensionsof (in)security. This section draws in particular on qualitative studies that reveal worker experiences of
on-call work. Though the findings primarily concern negative effects, the section reports that some
employees may achieve a degree of control over on-call schedules under certain circumstances, eg. when
workers have scarce skills and labour market conditions are favourable. Section 5 explores causes forthe developments outlined in the previous two sections, focusing on the importance of employer
calculations and choices. Section 6 briefly considers consequences for business and society at large,
concentrating on the discussion concerning short-term and long-term disadvantages for business of
employer decisions to rely on on-call work. Section 7 considers recent regulatory initiatives that aim tocombat the negative impacts of on-call and related forms of casual work. Section 8 offers a brief
conclusion. A background discussion of employment regulation and employment law in each country isplaced in Appendix A.

iv

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

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1.Key concepts: On-call, minimum-hour,zero-hour, casual workers
OnͲcallworkers
On-call workers are defined in this report as individuals who agree to be available for work and are thencalled in to work as and when they are needed (see ILO 2004; ILO 2016, 21, 28-30; Eurofound 2015, 46,
56-60). They could also be termed ‘on-demand’ workers. The category is limited to workers who follow
work-on-demand schedules for all or at least a large proportion of their actual working hours; it does notinclude workers such as medical personnel, for whom just a small proportion of actual working hours
result from on-call arrangements.1
On-call workers can be divided into two groups, depending on whether or not a guarantee of a minimum
number of hours per week is included in the employment contract. When a guarantee of minimum hours
is present, the workers can be called ‘minimum-hour’ workers. This category comprises workers who
have been guaranteed a small number of contractual hours each week, perhaps on a regular roster, but
who are subject to an agreement or expectation that they will be available for a substantial number of
additional hours of ‘flexing up’ at the discretion of the employer.2 When a guarantee of minimum hours
is absent, the workers can be called ‘zero-hour’ workers. In the latter case there are no contractual hours,
but the workers are subject to an agreement or expectation that they will be available for an unspecified
number of actual working hours at the discretion of the employer.
As the definition implies, contemporary forms of on-call work are linked to employer practices aimed atorganizing a pool of labour (labour time) that can be deployed in accordance with business needs. The
employing organization determines when a worker is needed and for how long, and it then initiates thecall for workers to attend work, eg through text or phone message or by posting the roster on a software
app or noticeboard.
On-call work is characterized by a large amount of employer control over an employee’s actual workingtime. Control applies to both main dimensions of a working-time ‘schedule’ or ‘roster’: a) duration(number of hours); and b) position (the timing of working hours over the day or week). For employees,
the outcome is a working-time pattern (schedule) in which working hours, as measured over a period ofa week or perhaps longer, tend to be variable in terms of duration and/ or position. Because variability
is on the basis of business needs, which may be framed in just-in-time terms with only short notice ofchanges, variability for the worker is in turn often linked with uncertainty and unpredictability of working
hours.
In this report all on-call workers are seen as subject to variable working-time in response to businessneeds. Beyond this common feature, however, the precise patterns of actual working time can be diverse– for example, in terms of aspects such as the extent of variability, the extent of unpredictability, the usual
duration of shifts, the usual duration of weekly hours, the extent of employee control, and the tenure ofjobs or engagements. Partly as a result of this diversity, the implications of on-call work for workers canalso be diverse.



1 Persons who undertake on-call work in a second job but have regular schedules in a main job are not counted here as on-callworkers. The issue of multiple job holding complicates analysis of on-call work, but it is not considered in this report, except inpassing in section 4.
2 When the minimum is accompanied by a definition of the maximum to which working hours can be flexed up, it is sometimes
called a min-max arrangement.

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 1021On-call work arrangements are characterized by agreement on the part of the worker to be available forcalls in to work during a specified period of the working week (ranging from ‘anytime’ to just one or two
blocks of time). Such agreement is pivotal in establishing an employment relationship and inconsolidating on-call work as a distinct form of employment. The agreement to be available may beformalized in a written contract (or statement of terms of employment). Alternatively, agreement can bepart of the set of informal understandings, which exist either in conjunction with a written contract orinstead of a written contract. Informal understandings are particularly important in the case of casual
jobs, many of which lack a written contract in both New Zealand and Australia.
Concepts of ‘on-call’, ‘zero-hour’ and ‘minimum-hour’ work arrangements do not figure in labour
regulation and labour statistics in New Zealand and Australia, thereby impeding the task of investigatingthese forms of employment. Similarly, vernacular understandings of the terms remain faint, with the one
exception of ‘zero-hour contracts’ in New Zealand, which became a familiar everyday term in 2014-15,
when the term was taken up at the start of a collective bargaining campaign aimed at securing betterworking-time conditions for employees in the major fast food chains (see section 7).

OnͲcallandcasualworkOn-call work is connected to casual work (ILO 2016; Eurofound 2015). This is true in at least two ways.
First, it is connected to a broad sense of ‘casual’ as a way of working/ working-time pattern, based on an
incidental relationship between employer and employee. This connection is cited in historically-informed
accounts, which note that contemporary forms of on-call work, especially zero-hour arrangements, often
resemble the highly commodified working-time patterns, generally labeled as casual work or ‘day
labour’, which were characteristic of the late nineteenth century. At that time, many employees supplied
their labour time in return for hourly or daily wages and were dependent on employers on a recurrent
day-to-day basis for offers of work and pay (Bosch 2006, 44-45; Stedman-Jones 1971).
Second, on-call work may be connected to a more specific sense of casual work as a distinct category of
employment within national legal systems and national frameworks for labour statistics. These national
categories, which present casual employment as one of several non-standard forms of employment, canvary widely in their content (de Stefano 2016b; ILO 2016). Both New Zealand and Australia use
categories of ‘casual’ to denote a type of employment relationship that is alternative to both permanent(or ongoing or continuing) employment and fixed-term employment, and the term ‘casual’ is a familiar
part of the vernacular in the two countries.
Legal understandings in New Zealand and Australia are reviewed in Appendix A, but it is useful here to
introduce the statistical framework in each country and the place of ‘casual’ work within that framework:i)

Official statistics in New Zealand, eg the March 2008 and December 2012 Survey ofWorking Life (SoWL) and the quarterly Household Labour Force Survey (HLFS),
distinguish, within the group of employees, between permanent and temporary
employees. A permanent employee is “an employee who is guaranteed continuing work.
They can stay in their job until they decide to leave or their employer makes them
redundant”. A temporary employee, on the other hand, is “an employee whose job only
lasts for a limited time or until the completion of a project”. Temporary employees are
sub-divided into five sub-categories: 1. Casual worker; 2. Temporary agency worker; 3.
Fixed-term workers; 4. Seasonal worker (not further defined); or 5. Other temporary
worker. In this framework, a casual worker is defined, similarly to the definition of an
on-call worker adopted in this report, asa temporary worker who only works when their employer asks them to, on an
as-needed basis, whose work is typically done in short episodes. A casual worker
may be asked to work a shift, for a few days or, less often, for several weeks at
a time. Casual workers do not have any guarantee of regular ongoing work.
(Statistics NZ 2014, 28).

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ii)

Official statistics in Australia generally distinguish, within the group of employees,
between ‘permanent’ and ‘casual’ employees. The distinction is not defined in terms ofa specific way of working but is instead, drawing on important aspects of the practice of
casual employment (Campbell and Brosnan 2005, 4), framed in terms of access to paid
leave entitlements, which is measured by means of survey questions on whether theemployee 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 havebeen 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 2008, 2013). 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 one or other of the two main categories (mostly within the category of ‘employeeswith leave entitlements’). The failure to identify fixed-term work is widely regarded as
unsatisfactory, and recent business surveys as well as non-ABS surveys such as thelongitudinal Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey,
have moved towards a more sensible tripartite division of employees, which would
separate out fixed-term employees.3

In both New Zealand and Australia on-call work and casual work are best seen as separate, albeit
overlapping, categories. On-call workers are often casual employees, in the sense defined by the national
system. The casual employment relationship offers a convenient framework for the development of oncall work, whether in the form of zero-hour or minimum-hour work. But this does not preclude theexistence of on-call workers within other forms of employment. Discussion in the following sections
considers on-call work that is organized through temporary work agencies, where the status of the worker– whether casual, fixed-term or self-employed – may be unclear. This in turn points to the shadowy areaof disguised employment and dependent contracting, which has come back into the spotlight with thedevelopment of the ‘gig economy’, consisting of forms of on-call work, aptly described as ‘work on
demand via apps’, which are reminiscent of casual employment and may be falsely presented as selfemployment (de Stefano 2016a). Most importantly, the discussion also considers on-call work that isorganized within the framework of a permanent employment contract. The fact that permanent
employment status is compatible with variable and unpredictable schedules in accordance with businessneeds is perhaps surprising, but it can be seen as a reflection of the characteristics of working-time
regulation in the two countries, especially in relation to part-time employees. In New Zealand it is possible
for both zero-hour workers and minimum-hour workers to be employed within the framework of apermanent contract of employment. In Australia, the existence of certain working-time protections forpermanent part-time employees excludes zero-hour workers, though it still leaves room for minimumhour workers, from the sphere of permanent employment (see Appendix A for more detail).
In considering on-call work and casual work as overlapping categories, it is also important to note thatthe category of casual in both countries reaches beyond just on-call workers. As well as ‘on-call casuals’,
it is possible to detect a remainder group of casual employees who have regular (and predictable) rosters
and can be called ‘regular casuals’. The size of this latter group is particularly large in Australia. Though
this report is primarily concerned with on-call work, whether casual or permanent, it regards regularcasual work as a related phenomenon. The boundary between the on-call and regular casuals is not hardand fast, partly because variability and unpredictability can be seen as a question of degree and partly
because any calculation of variability is sensitive to the time period chosen. Moreover, regular casuals
may still experience substantial deficits in their working-time patterns, which serve to link them with oncall workers. Indeed, in Australia the group of regular (or ‘permanent’) casuals, which is seen as trapped
3 Temporary agency employees are counted in supplementary labour force surveys, which reveal that the overwhelming majority

are casual employees and would therefore be included in labour force surveys within the category of workers without leave
entitlements (ABS 2010). There is little information on seasonal workers, but they too would be incorporated into one or other of
the two main categories (probably the category of casual).

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 1023


in casual work and unfairly disadvantaged, is often taken as the main target for new regulatory initiatives(see section 7).

Otherconcepts
Other concepts that are often associated with on-call work include flexible work, precarious work andpart-time work:
On-call work is sometimes designated as flexible work, perhaps as one of several types of ‘flexible work’.
In particular, on-call and related forms of casual work are directly associated with working-time flexibility.
Any meaningful discussion of flexibility needs, however, to carefully distinguish flexibility for employers(or employing organizations) from flexibility for employees, i.e what can be termed ‘employer-oriented’and ‘employee-oriented’ flexibility (Chung and Tijdens 2013). On-call work involves employer controlof the two fundamental dimensions of working-time – duration and position, and it can be seen as
primarily to do with employer-oriented flexibility. Employee-oriented flexibility is hard to detect in oncall work, though scope does exist for a limited degree of employee control of working-time, which is
discussed in section 4.
On-call work is sometimes described as precarious work. Precariousness is a synonym for labour
insecurity, and precarious work is best understood as work that displays several dimensions of insecurity
or precariousness (Campbell and Price 2016; Vosko et al. 2009). On-call work is often associated withhigh levels of insecurity for workers, and indeed on-call work or casual work in general has often been
identified as the most precarious form of employment in contemporary industrialised societies(Broughton et al. 2016, 16-18; Eurofound 2015, 139-140; ILO 2016, 224; McKay et al. 2012, 77-79).
The way in which and the extent to which on-call work in New Zealand and Australia is insecure orprecarious is discussed in section 4.
In principle, on-call and related forms of casual work can involve either full-time or part-time weekly
working hours (or indeed hours that fluctuate across the boundary). In both countries, however, on-calland related forms of casual work are most strongly associated with part-time working hours, understoodin this report as working hours below 35 per week. In particular, on-call work is associated with what isusefully termed marginalized, as opposed to integrative, part-time work (Fagan and O’Reilly 1998; seealso Messenger and Wallot 2015).

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2. A Descriptive Profile
This section examines on-call and related forms of casual work in New Zealand and Australia in termsof incidence, trends, distribution by sector, occupation and size of enterprise, worker characteristics, andselected features of working-time patterns. It considers each country separately.
Unfortunately, robust quantitative data for these features are limited in both countries, especially New
Zealand. It is possible to use responses to occasional questions in labour force surveys on variable
working-time patterns in order to make rough estimates of the overall incidence of on-call workers aswell as their distribution within specific forms of employment such as casual and permanent employment.
But beyond this basic information it is difficult to develop a descriptive profile, and the report is obliged
to take recourse in data on the overlapping category of casual employment, supplemented by what weknow from the qualitative data and secondary studies.

NewZealand
Incidence
The best clue to incidence is in data from the latest (2012) Survey of Working Life (SoWL), where aquestion directly addresses the issue of on-call work by asking whether working hours vary to suitemployer needs. Unfortunately, the question is confined to the omnibus group of temporary employees,
who constituted a minority of only 10% of all employees.4 Nevertheless, the data are revealing. The
majority (118,100) of temporary employees, including over 80% (74,100) of all casual employees, statedthat their hours did vary to suit employer needs. In all, those who answered ‘yes’ to this question
represented 6.4% of all New Zealand employees in 2012, up from 5.5% in 2008 (see Table 1).

Table 1.

Temporary employees whose hours change from week to week to suit employer’s
needs, New Zealand, 2008 and 2012 (thousands and percentages)*

Employment relationship(main job)

2008

2012

Casual (‘000)
Fixed-term (‘000)
Temporary agency worker (‘000)
Seasonal worker not further defined (‘000)
All temporary employees (‘000)

58.0
15.0
6.9
15.0
96.5

74.1
Na
Na
Na
118.1

As % of all employees

5.5

6.4

*Persons who answered ‘yes’ or ‘sometimes’
Source: 2008 figures are calculated from Dixon 2009, 68; 2012 figures are from Statistics New Zealand, SoWL 2012.

A further question in SoWL 2012 on ‘usual working time’ revealed 66,400 permanent employees, i.e.
3.6% of all employees, who reported that they had ‘no usual working-time’ (SoWL 2012). If we put theanswers to both questions together, we reach an estimate of 10% for all employees who had irregular
4 The proportion of New Zealand employees who are permanent is relatively stable at around 90%, while casual employees

account for around 5% and other categories of temporary employees account for the remaining 5%. (SoWL 2012; Statistics New
Zealand 2017),

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

5


working-time schedules in 2012, primarily as a result of variation to suit employer needs. It is possible
to take this as a rough estimate of the proportion of on-call workers in the New Zealand waged workforce.
This should be regarded as an upper bound estimate. It successfully captures employees who have aregular on-call component in their weekly working hours, but it does not differentiate cases where theon-call component is all or most or just a small part of their actual weekly hours. The data do not, forexample, allow us to distinguish zero-hour workers from minimum-hour workers. Nevertheless, the datastrongly suggest that on-call work is a prominent element within New Zealand labour markets.
The data allow us to discuss the distribution of on-call workers amongst different types of employment.
On-call workers are disproportionately found amongst casual employees. On-call casuals constitute
40.2% of the total estimate of on-call workers. Conversely, on-call casuals represent 80.1% of all casual
employees, leaving a remainder group of around 20% who can be considered as ‘regular’ casual
employees. The other categories of temporary work, such as fixed-term employees, temporary agency
workers and seasonal employees, also contain some on-call workers, though their contribution to theoverall estimate (23.8%) is not as significant as that of casual employees. The data also point to a
substantial contribution of 36% from the ranks of permanent employees, although this represents only asmall minority (4%) of the total number of permanent employees.
One item of interest here is the limited contribution of temporary agency workers, which are singled out
as a separate category in New Zealand labour statistics. Around half (58%) of all temporary agency
workers in 2008 stated that their hours vary to suit employers’ needs (Dixon 2009, 68). But they make alimited contribution, because the overall number of temporary agency workers is low (Table 1). Theremay be some undercounting in official data, eg since survey questions are directed only to employees andthey may miss cases, especially in blue-collar sectors such as horticulture, mining and construction, where
workers organized by temporary work agencies are considered, whether rightly or wrongly, as selfemployed. Nevertheless, most studies agree that, irrespective of any undercounting in the official data,
the overall incidence of TAW in New Zealand is indeed low (Burgess et al. 2005).
The data do not allow any firm conclusions about the distribution of minimum-hour and zero-hourversions of on-call work across the different types of employment. But it is worth stressing here that bothgroups are likely to be found across the board.5 ‘Minimum hours’ or ‘low hours’ contracts have long beena familiar feature of permanent part-time employment in supermarkets (NZCTU 2013, 28; MBIE 2015b;
see McLaughlin and Rasmussen 1998), but they are also likely to be found in temporary employment.
Much of the initial controversy in New Zealand around zero-hour contracts derived from the practices oflarge firms in fast food, where employees were classified as permanent (see section 7). But otherqualitative evidence (Hannif and Lamm 2005; C. King 2016b; NZCTU 2013) suggest that zero-hour work
arrangements are also found within temporary, and in particular casual, employment. Indeed, it is likelythat the major part of on-call casual work approximates to a zero-hour model – guided by (informal)
understandings about availability and shared commitment to an employment relationship, but without
any employer commitment to a guaranteed minimum number of working hours.
TrendsData on trends for on-call workers are hard to find. The controversy around zero-hour contracts from2014 onwards was accompanied by suggestions that they constituted a ‘large and growing problem’(NZCTU 2015, 7; MBIE 2015b, 2; O’Meara 2014). One union source suggested that growth could belinked back to labour market deregulation in in the 1990s:
5 A 2013 report from the central trade union body, the New Zealand Confederation of Trade Unions (NZCTU) (NZCTU 2013)

includes worker testimonies that refer to on-call work arrangement organized as casual employment (housekeeper in hotel,
waterfront worker), seasonal work (meatworkers), temporary agency work (white-collar ‘temping’) and permanent work (retail
employee, cinema attendant).

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Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

They became entrenched in the 1990s during the dark days of the Employment Contracts Act.
They affect literally hundreds of thousands of workers in fast food, cinemas, hotels, home care,security, cleaning, hospitality and retail. (Treen 2015, 3; see also MBIE 2015b)
This suggestion finds some support in the academic literature. Rasmussen et al. (2004, 640) note thatpart-time employees, especially in private sector services, suffered blows to their wages and conditions
owing to the disappearance of award protections after the Employment Contracts Act (ECA) in 1991, therise in outsourcing, the liberalization of shop trading hours and the decline in collective bargaining. They
draw attention to figures for time-related underemployment as one piece of evidence for a deteriorationof working-time conditions for many part-time employees (2004, 641).
Given the strong overlap between on-call work and casual work, it is useful to consider whether trend
data for casual employees can throw up any insights. The number of casual workers has grown over the
past eight years but largely in line with the growth of the overall workforce, with the result that the
proportion has remained much the same (Table 2). It is possible to construct a longer time-series byintegrating data from an employer survey administered in New Zealand, Australia and South Africa in
1995, which uses a category based on the New Zealand category of casual. These data suggest that casual
work constituted 5.4% of employees in 1995 (3.4% of male employees and 8 percent of female
employees) (Brosnan and Walsh 1998, 30; see also Allan et al. 2001; Tucker 2002, 19-21). Thus, theavailable data suggest that casual employees as a proportion of employees has been relatively stable ataround 5% for over twenty years.
Table 2.

Casual employees, New Zealand, 2008-2016 (thousands and percentages)
Male
‘000

2008
2012
2016Q2
2016Q3
2016Q4
2017Q1

*38.6
36.2
48.4
44.1
47.7
47.2

CasualFemale% of male ‘000
employees
4.3
*46.5
3.9
55.3
4.8
58.0
4.3
52.7
4.6
59.8
4.6
54.9

% of female
employees
5.5
6.1
5.9
5.3
5.9
5.4

Total
‘000
85.1
91.6
106.4
96.8
107.4
102.1

% of allemployees
4.9
5.0
5.4
4.8
5.2
4.9

All employees‘000
1743.21843.7
1987.92006.62059.92069.3

Source: 2008 calculated from Dixon 2009; 2012 from Statistics New Zealand, SoWL 2012; 2016 and 2017 from Statistics New
Zealand, Infoshare, HLFS.

In short, the evidence for trends is inconclusive. Insofar as there is growth in on-call work, it is unfolding
underneath the categories used in the official statistics.
Distribution by sector, occupation and size of enterpriseOn-call workers are predominantly lower-skilled workers in a range of service sector industries. A
consultation process, together with a review of clauses in selected agreements, in connection with the2016 legislation indicated that “… zero hours contracts were being widely used in the Quick Service
Restaurant (QSR) industry, as well as some food and beverage businesses, convenience stores andresidential care businesses. Low-hours contracts were also found in supermarkets.” (MBIE 2015b, 19,
see also 2, 8).
The core industries for on-call workers are those in which casual employees are most strongly
represented, such as agriculture, forestry and fishing and mining, and retail and accommodation and foodservices (Table 3; see Dixon 2009, 62; NZCTU 2013, 27-28). In agriculture, forestry and fishing, casual
employees are joined by many seasonal employees, whose working-time conditions may be similar to

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

7


casual employees and may incorporate an on-call component. In retail trade, similarly, conditions forpart-time permanent employees in sub-sectors such as supermarkets often have a strong on-call element.
Again, in food services casual employees may be joined by part-time permanent employees on similar
on-call work arrangements. Industries that do not figure in aggregate but deserve mention include
transport services, where on-call versions of casual work have re-appeared on the waterfront (NZCTU
2013; Reveley 1999), and health care and social assistance, where on-call workers are found in subsectors such as domiciliary care for aged persons.
Casual employees are spread across several occupational categories, but they are most concentrated inlower-skilled occupations, especially labourers, community and personal service workers, and sales
workers (Table 3). The same is likely to be true for all on-call workers.
It might be expected that casual workers would be concentrated in small enterprises (WEB Research
2004, 8, 61-2). SoWL data (not shown here) suggest a higher proportion of casual employees in small as
opposed to large enterprises, but the difference is only slight and may be a sectoral effect, given theconcentration of casual workers in industry divisions with a relatively high proportion of small enterprises(Dixon 2009, 62; SoWL 2012). Case-study research in selected industries in 2003 suggests that industry,ie the nature of the product and the process, rather than the size of the firm, is the decisive factor in
explaining patterns of casual and temporary employment (WEB Research 2004, 61-62).
Table 3.

Casual employees in New Zealand by occupation and industry, December 2012
(thousands and percentages)

Selected industry divisions:
Agriculture, forestry and fishing andminingRetail trade and accommodationand food services
Arts, recreation and other services
All other industry divisions

Casual employees (‘000)

As % of all employees

All employees(‘000)

9.2

11.2

82

23.0

7.8

296.3

6.5
52.9

6.5
3.9

100.2
1365.2

Selected occupation:
Community and personal service
workers
Sales workers
Labourers
All other occupations

16.4

8.0

203.8

11.2
22.8
41.2

6.5
12.3
3.2

172.8
186.0
1281.1

Total

91.6

5.0

1843.7

Source: Statistics New Zealand, SoWL 2012.

Characteristics of Workers
Women are more likely than men to be on-call employees. They account for 55.7% of casual employees
in December 2016, compared to less than half (49.3%) of all employees (HLFS 2016). As a result theshare of female employees that is casual is higher than the share of male employees that is casual (Table2). This is partly counterbalanced by the fact that male employees tend to be more concentrated in otherforms of temporary work. On the other hand, women are heavily concentrated in the ranks of permanent
part-time employees that can be considered on-call.

8

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102
A strong pattern by age is evident, with 12.4% of young workers aged 15-24 in casual employment, as
well as a share of almost 10% amongst the small group over 65, but with smaller shares for all other age
groups (Table 4).
Table 4.

Casual employees in New Zealand by age, qualifications and birthplace, December
2012 (thousands and percentages)
Casual employees(‘000)

As % of all
employees

All employees(‘000)

Age:
15-24
65+
Other age groups

37.3
6.9
47.4

12.4
9.7
3.2

300.7
71.3
1471.7

Qualifications:
No qualification
SchoolVocational or trade
Bachelor’s degree
PostgradOther post-school

16.3
31.1
17.8
17.6
5.0
3.8

5.8
7.8
3.0
5.6
3.2
4.6

279.4
399.1
589.7
313.9
157.9
82.0

Birthplace:
Born in New ZealandBorn overseas

73.1
18.5

5.5
3.7

1338.8
504.6

Total

91.6

5.0

1843.7

Source: Statistics New Zealand, SoWL 2012.

The numbers in casual work are a small minority in all groups distinguished by qualification level.
However, workers with no qualifications or school-based qualifications are more likely to be in casual
employment, while workers with vocational or trade qualifications are the least likely to be in casual
employment (Table 4).
Ethnicity is a significant labour market factor in New Zealand. Maori and Pacific workers are a
substantial minority (around 16%) of all employees. They are spread across the workforce, but withhigher proportions in casual and seasonal work (Statistics New Zealand 2017; see also Statistics New
Zealand, SoWL 2012; NZCTU 2013, 26).
Employees born in New Zealand are more likely than employees born overseas to be in casual
employment (Table 4). The data do not capture, however, the special situation of the increasing numberof workers on a temporary work visa, many of whom would not be counted in the official statistics if
their stay were short. It seems likely that temporary migrant workers in New Zealand are
disproportionately incorporated into casualised work, including on-call work arrangements (Yuan et al.
2014, 76-77). Recent evidence using taxation records indicates that temporary migrant workers areconcentrated in industry divisions where much casual work is found and that they constitute a significant
proportion of the workforce in these industries. Working holiday makers and those in the dedicatedprogramme for Pacific Island workers, the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme, are found invaried parts of agriculture, forestry and fishing, including in particular fruit and tree nuts, where
temporary migrants accounted for 18% of months worked in 2011 (McLeod and Mare 2013, 18-21; see
Bedford et al. 2017). Similarly, international students and working holiday makers are a major part of
the workforce in accommodation and also in food services, where temporary migrants accounted for 14%

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

9
of months worked in 2011 (McLeod and Mare 2013, 18-21). Undocumented workers can also be
considered as temporary migrant workers and are also likely to be found disproportionately in the same
industry divisions. Within food services in 2013, temporary migrants were estimated at forty to fifty
percent of all workers in the fast food industry and the overwhelming majority of managers (Treen 2013).
Average working hours and schedules
On-call work is heavily oriented to part-time hours. This feature is evident in the data for casual workers,
who are predominantly engaged in part-time work, often ‘short’ part-time work of less than 20 hours per
week (Table 5; see Dixon 2011, 8). If we extend the perspective to include on-call work outside of theboundaries of casual status, then the importance of part-time schedules becomes even more important,given on-call work in industries such as retail and fast food primarily takes the form of part-timepermanent employment.6
Table 5.

Casual, temporary and all employees in New Zealand, selected working-time
patterns, December 2012 (number of hours and thousands)
Casualemployees

All temporary
employees

All employees

Mean number of usual hours
Median number of usual hours

21.5
18.0

27.6
28.0

36.6
40.0

Usual hours worked per week (main job) (‘000 persons)
0-19
20-29
30-39
40+

40.6
14.1
9.1
16.4

59.3
29.0
23.4
64.8

226.9
176.1
268.6
1130.0Usual working time (all jobs) (‘000 persons)
Usually worked all hours at standard times*
Didn’t usually work all hours at standard times
No usual time

48.2
34.2
8.9

114.3
65.6
11.8

1219.4545.3
78.2

Advance notice of work schedule (‘000 persons)
It varies
One day or less
Two to six days
>Six days
Always known

15.6
20.3
10.4
25.3
18.8

Na
Na
Na
Na
na

Na
Na
Na
Na
na

Tenure (main job) (‘000 persons)Less than 6 months
6 months to less than 1 year
1 to less than 3 years
3+ years

40.0
8.1
23.2
20.2

75.1
21.6
47.4
48.2

240.6
125.2
407.9
1067.6

Total (‘000 persons)

91.6

192.2

1843.7*Standard is defined as usually working all hours in all jobs between 7am and 7pm, Monday to Friday.
Source: Statistics New Zealand, SoWL 2012.



6 The workforce in fast food, many of whom were on zero-hours contracts prior to 2016, was overwhelmingly (80%) part-time,

according to union estimates (Treen 2017).

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Schedules for on-call workers can vary in terms of position as well as duration, often involving work at
non-standard (or ‘unsocial’) times, ie evenings, nights and weekends. Data from 2012 indicate that casual
workers were more likely than workers in other forms of temporary work and much more likely thanpermanent workers to work at non-standard times (Table 5). The same is likely to be true for the on-callworkers found outside the boundaries of casual status, eg. the group of permanent part-time employees
in service industries with long operating hours such as retail and fast food.
Variable schedules for on-call workers are often characterized by short notice. Some 18.8% of casuals
stated that they always knew what days and times they would be working. The others had differing
degrees of notice of their schedules, with 22.2% stating that they only received one day or less advancenotice (Table 5). For those with little notice it seems appropriate to speak not only of variability but alsoof high levels of unpredictability.
Tenure for on-call workers is likely to be shorter than for other workers. As Table 5 indicates, most casual
workers (52.5%) have been in their main job for less than one year, and 43.7% for less than six months.
But what is perhaps surprising, in view of the understanding of casual work as based on shortengagements, is that many casual employees claim longer periods of job tenure, eg. more than a year or
more than 3 years.

Australia
Incidence
Though Australia produces more extensive labour statistics and academic research than New Zealand,
the challenge of exploring on-call and related forms of casual remains formidable. Table 6 shows selected
items from ABS surveys which relate to variation in schedules.7 The items are far from adequate as ameasure of on-call workers, partly because they fail to clearly identify variability to suit employer needs
and partly because they are likely to pick up employees for whom variability only concerns a small
proportion of their hours. Nevertheless, the data throw some light on the issue.



7 A question in supplementary ABS surveys asks employed persons whether they are “usually required to be on-call or standby”.

23.5% of casual employees answered ‘yes’. However, even larger proportions of owner-managers, with or without employees,
as well as many permanent employees also answered ‘yes’, suggesting that ‘on-call’ was being interpreted in a way inconsistent
with the understanding in this report – perhaps as a reference to after-hours availability by professionals such as medical
personnel and IT consultants (ABS 2015). Because the question fails to separate out the group of on-call workers that
constitutes the focus of this report, the answers are not used here.

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

11
Table 6.

Casual and permanent employees (excluding owner-managers of incorporated
enterprises [OMIEs]), selected employment conditions, Australia, August 2016 andAugust 2015 (thousands and percentages)

Selected employment conditions

Casual‘000

PermanentAllemployees
%

961.0

% of
‘000
casualemployees
39.1
1125.3% ofpermanent
employees
15.3

1309.453.2

1129.415.4

24.8

1426.2

58.0

496.3

6.7

19.6

2460.9100.07353.2100.0

100(9811.7)

Days of the week usually worked in all jobs 658.1
varied b)
Total b)2326.3

28.3

981.1

13.5

17.1

100.0

7251.0100.0

100(9575.4)

Did not usually work the same number ofhours each week in main job a)
Earnings/income (excluding overtime) varied
from one pay period to the next in main job a)
Not guaranteed a minimum number of hours
of work in main job a)
Total a)21.2

Source: a) ABS 2016a, Cat. No. 6333.0; b) ABS 2015, Cat. No. 6333.0.

The data indicate first that variation in working-time schedules is more common amongst casual
employees than amongst permanent employees. This is unsurprising. At the same time the data indicatethat variation is far from universal amongst casual employees. In short, the measures point towards thedistinction between on-call casuals and regular casuals. The question on whether the employee usuallyworks the same number of hours each week is perhaps the best measure of on-call casuals, since it isreasonable to presume that variation of hours for casual employees will be primarily to suit employer’s
needs. If we accept this argument, the data in Table 6 suggest that in August 2016 almost 40% of casuals
could be regarded as on-call casuals and just over 60% could be regarded as regular casuals. These figuressuggest that the proportion of casuals who could be called on-call casuals is smaller in Australia than in
New Zealand.
Table 6 indicates that casual employees (‘employees without leave entitlements’) are a substantial part of
the Australian workforce, comprising almost two-and-a half million employees in August 2016 – justover 25% of all employees (see also Table 7). Thus, casual work in Australia is almost five times as
significant as a proportion of the waged workforce as the parallel category of casual work in New Zealand.
Thus, even if on-call casuals in Australia are a smaller proportion of all casuals, they are likely toconstitute a larger proportion of the overall waged workforce than in New Zealand.
Further evidence for the large size of the on-call casual workforce in Australia can be found in the resultsof a 1995 employer survey in New Zealand and Australia, which used a category of ‘occasional’
employee, defined as “employees hired on a periodic basis as need arises” (Brosnan and Walsh 1998,
29).8 This could be taken as a rough measure of on-call casual workers. The estimate of ‘occasional’

8 The survey lists six main employment types, including ‘occasional’, ‘permanent’, ‘apprentices’, ‘fixed term’, ‘temporary’, andcontractors/consultants’. There is some overlap between the category of ‘occasional’ and that of ‘temporary’, defined as“employees taken on for a relatively short but unspecified period”. However, this does not significantly affect the relative
comparison, since ‘temporary’ employees were of similar importance in the two countries - 2.6% of all employees in New Zealandand 2.4% in Australia (Brosnan and Walsh 1998, 29-30).

12

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102


employees as a proportion of all employees was 5.4% for New Zealand and 9.9% for Australia (Brosnan
and Walsh 1998, 30).9It seems appropriate to suggest a rough guesstimate of 40% for the proportion of all casuals that are oncall casuals in Australia. This would be equivalent to just over 10% of all employees in Australia.
The discussion so far is confined to on-call workers who are casual employees. What about on-callworkers who are located in other forms of employment? Fixed-term employees constitute around 4% of
all employees, but they are generally full-time employees, often professionals employed in particular ineducation and training, and the category is unlikely to include many on-call workers. Official labour force
data indicate that the category of temporary agency employees is larger than in New Zealand, constituting
1.36% of all employees in August 2016 (ABS 2016a). Temporary agency workers, usually called ‘labourhire workers’ in Australia, are predominantly full-time workers (ABS 2016a), with women mainly inclerical and administrative positions and men in blue-collar occupations in industries such as
manufacturing and construction. The length of placements is generally long, with the majority threemonths or more, suggesting that they are used as replacements for permanent full-time employees,
sometimes through outsourcing and subcontracting, rather than as on-call workers (Underhill 2005, 334). Moreover, there is no need to add any extra numbers to the estimate of on-call workers cited above,since temporary agency workers are mainly (80%) casual employees (ABS 2010), who will already havebeen counted in the count of casual workers. Dependent contractors are workers who appear to be
independent contractors, working with an ABN (Australian Business Number) and without mostemployment-related protections, but who closely resemble employees in being dependent on one
employer and performing work under the direct control of that employer. One estimate from a 2007
survey suggests that ‘dependent contractors’ were 2.6% of the workforce (van Wanrooy et al. 2007, 20;
see Shomos et al. 2013, 87-88). Most are workers employed on a regular roster, but a few are likely to be
on-call workers, with variable hours. The on-call component amongst dependent contractors is likely tohave grown recently as a consequence of the emergence of new forms of on-call work, which are mediatedthrough apps and presented as self-employment, such as bicycle food delivery (Foodora, Deliveroo)(Hatch 2016; Stanford 2017).
On-call workers can also be found within the ranks of permanent employees. It is, however, difficult toestimate how many. One pointer is the estimated 202,000 employees in August 2016 – amounting to justover 2% of all employees – who were classified as permanent employees (‘employees with leave
entitlements) but identified themselves as casuals (ABS 2016a). Similarly, a recent qualitative study inregional areas uncovered a group of ‘permanent irregular’ workers, who had paid leave entitlements andtherefore did not fit the main ABS category of casual; they nevertheless saw themselves as casual because
they “all worked highly irregular and uncertain hours and their income fluctuated markedly from week
to week” (McGann et al. 2012, 103; 2016, 771).
On-call workers who appear in the statistics as permanent employees may include some full-time
employees (McGann et al. 2012, 2016), but they are most likely to be permanent part-time employees.
Such workers are familiar in retail, especially supermarkets (Campbell and Chalmers 2008), but they canalso be found in other sectors, such as residential and home-based care (Charlesworth 2012) and hotels(Knox 2006, 466-9).10 In comparison to New Zealand, on-call workers who are permanent part-time arelikely to constitute a smaller proportion of the overall workforce. Though part-time employment inaggregate is more significant in Australia, most (53.5%) part-time employees are classified as casual
rather than permanent (Table 7). If Australian employers desired or felt compelled to introduce anelement of variability into part-time schedules, casual employment provides a more convenient
9 If we used this figure as an estimate of the number of on-call casuals in Australia, we could use the ABS statistics for all casual
employees in 1995 to generate a rough estimate of the ratio of on-call casuals to regular casuals. Given that the overall
proportion of casual employees in the official statistics was 22.7% in 1995 (ABS 2014, 6105.0), the results of the 1995 employer
survey suggest that about 43% of all casuals in Australia could be called on-call casual and 57% could be called regular casuals.
This is broadly consistent with the measures presented in Table 6.
10 Banking is also relevant, though in this case the on-call element that is present in the schedules of permanent part-time
employees seems too small to qualify them as on-call workers in the sense used in this report (Junor 1998; Walsh 2007).

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

13


framework than permanent employment. For example, employment in the fast food chains in Australia,
as in New Zealand, is mainly on part-time schedules with extensive employer-led variation in schedules,
but whereas the employees are permanent part-time in New Zealand they are generally classified as casualpart-time in Australia (Allan et al. 2002; Limbrey 2015).11 Nevertheless, though relatively smaller thanin New Zealand, the size of the permanent part-time workforce remains substantial in Australia,
comprising almost 1.5 million employees in 2016 (15.3% of all employees), around 80% of whom werefemale (Table 7).
Table 7.

Casual and permanent employees (excluding OMIEs), Australia, August 2016
(thousands)
Male

FemalePersons

Casual:Full-timePart-time
Total

503.0
663.4
1166.8231.91059.01294.5734.8
1724.72460.9Permanent:
Full-timePart-time
Total

3553.1300.43853.52300.21196.73499.65855.61498.07353.2All employees:
Full-timePart-time
Total4056.6963.75019.32533.92258.94792.36590.53221.3
9811.7

Source: ABS 2016a, Cat. No. 6333.0.

This discussion points to some tentative conclusions about the distribution of on-call workers amongst
different types of employment. On-call work in Australia is overwhelmingly located within the categoryof casuals, though on-call casuals do not necessarily represent the majority of casuals. There is a
substantial contribution from the ranks of permanent employees, though it is likely to be a smaller
contribution than in the case of New Zealand.
What is the distribution of zero-hour and minimum-hour workers across these different categories of
employment in Australia? Zero-hour work arrangements are likely to be the dominant form of on-callwork within the framework of casual employment. Though some on-call casuals may have an informal
understanding with the employer, which guarantees them a minimum number of hours of paid work, it
seems likely that most on-call casuals, i.e. up to 10% of all employees, will have no guaranteed minimum
hours and could be described as zero-hour workers. Extensive qualitative evidence points to the presenceof zero-hour arrangements in casual work (eg. Bohle et al. 2004; Pocock et al. 2004a). This is supported
by quantitative evidence, which indicates that the majority (58%) of casual employees in 2016 judgedthat they had no guaranteed minimum hours (Table 6). Though some of those who stated that they had
no guaranteed minimum hours might be ‘regular casuals’ who felt insecure in spite of regular schedules,
most are likely to stem from the category of on-call workers, who see their hours vary from week to week.


11 A recent employer report reveals that in May 2015 McDonald’s in Australia employed 98, 911 employees across its 943

restaurants (778 of which were operated by franchisees and 165 of which were company owned). Over three quarters werecasual employees, while 16.4% were permanent part-time and 7% were permanent full-time. Most casual and permanent parttime employees were aged 14 to 18 and were combining a few shifts per week, generally in evenings and on weekends, withfull-time study, generally at secondary school (Limbrey 2015). The rosters for permanent employees are not explained in thereport, but it is clear that most casual employees are on-call casuals who state their availabilities when employed (subject tochange during the course of their employment) and are then rostered to work within those periods in accordance with thefluctuating needs of the particular store.

14

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102


On the other hand, zero-hour clauses in written permanent contracts are unknown in Australia. In contrast
to New Zealand, on-call workers who are classified as permanent employees will generally be minimumhour rather than zero-hour workers, since permanent part-time employees are generally required to be ona regular roster, even if only for a small part of their actual working hours (see Appendix A).
Trends
On-call working has been a component of the Australian workforce for several decades. Trends are,however, difficult to determine. Data are largely confined to the aggregate category of casual workers(in their main job). The size of the casual workforce increased rapidly in the 1980s and 1990s, rising toaround 25% as a proportion of all employees in the early 2000s. Since then the proportion has stabilizedaround this level (ABS 2014, 2016a; see Lass and Wooden 2017a; Shomos et al. 2013, 79-81). Annual
August data (ABS 2016a) suggest that the GFC exercised a dampening effect, with casual workers, as
the more disposable part of the workforce, disproportionately hit in the downturn. However, thesubsequent period has seen a slight rise in the proportion of casual employees back to 25.1% of all
employees in 2016 – around the levels of the early 2000s (see also Watson 2017, 25 for two trend
measures on casual workers from HILDA).
Within the overall category of casual, which has remained stable as a proportion of all employees, some
limited evidence points to a relative increase in the on-call component of casual work. Thus, theproportion of casual employees reporting variable hours increased by five percentage points from 2007
to 2016, and this was matched by similar increases in the proportion reporting variable earnings and an
absence of minimum guaranteed hours over that period (ABS 2016a, 2012).
Trends for the other components of the category of on-call work are difficult to determine. Recent figures
for temporary agency work suggest a slight decline since 2001 (Shomos et al. 2013, 82-83). On the other
hand, permanent part-time employees have been increasing steadily in recent decades, both as aproportion of all employees and as a proportion of part-time employees. They have been growing moststrongly in the industry divisions in which minimum-hour on-call work is found, such as retail and carework. As in New Zealand, the on-call workers who are found within this group may be increasing as aproportion of all employees.
Distribution by sector, occupation and size of enterprise
Casual workers are spread throughout the employment structure, but they are concentrated in certain
industries. Table 8 shows eight industry divisions in which casual work is used intensively, ie. wherecasual employees constitute more than one quarter of all employees. Casual intensity is strongest inaccommodation and food services, where almost two thirds (65.4%) of all employees are casual rather
than permanent, but it is also strong in retail and the small industry division of agriculture, forestry andfishing. Mention should also be made of other industry divisions which contain large numbers of casuals,
although the proportion remains below the 25.1% for all industries – health care and social assistance(287,500 casuals), education and training (168,700 casuals), and manufacturing (145,800 casuals). In
each of these industry divisions, casual work is strong in specific sub-sectors, though it may not appear
prominent in the data for the entire division. For example, within the education and training industry
division casual work is widely used in tertiary education (May et al. 2013), though not in the primary andsecondary sectors (except in the case of ‘relief teachers’ – see Bamberry 2011). Within health care andsocial assistance, casual work is strong in aged care, both residential aged care and home care, where it
supplements the even higher proportion of employees who are permanent part-time (King et al. 2012).
Data that are not tied to casual status are rare. But it is possible to draw on published HILDA data thatrefer to variability in the position of working hours across some of these industry sectors. The data point
to a large minority of employees in retail and accommodation and food services who state that they work
varying days in the week, rather than a regular roster of days. The minority increased substantiallybetween 2006 and 2014 – reaching 22.5% in retail and 30.7% in accommodation and food services in2014 (FWC 2016, 19). This indicates the strong presence of on-call work in both retail andaccommodation and food services.

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

15Casual employees are found in all occupations, but they tend to be most concentrated in lower-skilledoccupations (Table 8). Only a small proportion of managers and professional are classified as casual but
almost half (49.8%) of all labourers are casual.
Casual workers in general are disproportionately concentrated in smaller firms, with nearly a third(32.5%) of casuals employed in 2012 in firms with less than 20 employees as opposed to less than aquarter (23.3%) of all employees (ABS data cited in DofE 2015). Nevertheless, they are distributed
widely in firms of different sizes and can also be found in large firms. It is possible that on-call casuals
are more likely than regular casuals to be found in the larger firms, since an on-call system requires anextra investment in organizing and rostering a peripheral workforce. Similarly, permanent part-time
employees who can be called on-call workers are likely to be predominantly employed in larger firms.
Table 8.

Casual and permanent employees (excluding OMIEs), Australia, by selectedindustry divisions and occupations, August 2016 (thousands and percentages)
Casual‘000% of casual
employees

Permanent‘000% ofpermanent
employees

All employee%

Selected industry divisions:
Agriculture, forestry and fishing
Construction
Retail trade
Accommodation and food services
Transport, postal and warehousing
Administrative and support services
Arts and recreation services
Other services

59.8
162.8
380.0
491.2
124.1
109.2
74.8
90.9

2.4
6.6
15.4
20.0
5.0
4.4
3.0
3.7

80.0
476.7
685.4
258.4
343.3
212.0
102.6
260.3

1.1
6.5
9.3
3.5
4.7
2.9
1.4
3.6

1.4
6.5
10.9
7.7
4.7
3.3
1.8
3.6

Occupations:Managers
Professionals
Technicians and trades workers
Community and personal service workers
Clerical and administrative workers
Sales workers
Machinery operators and drivers
Labourers

71.1
286.7
241.6
479.9
271.3
428.9
187.6
492.9

2.9
11.7
9.8
19.5
11.0
17.4
7.6
20.0

913.7
2052.21000.6673.8
1215.9
534.2
459.1
499.5

12.4
27.9
13.6
9.2
16.5
7.3
6.2
6.8

10.1
23.9
12.7
11.8
15.1
9.8
6.6
10.1

Total

2460.9100.07353.2

100.0

100.0
(9811.7)

Source: ABS 2016a, Cat. No. 6333.0.

Characteristics of workers
Women are more likely than men to be on-call employees. They are more likely than men to be casual
workers, although they constitute only a minority of employees in total (Table 9). Casual employment
appeared most clearly as a gendered phenomenon in the period after the Second World War, as increasing
numbers of women sought to participate in the workforce on a part-time basis and found that part-timework was often available only with casual status and poor quality wages and conditions (Pocock et al.,2004b; Stewart 2015, 66-67). They were joined by many full-time secondary and tertiary students, who

16

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

also sought part-time schedules. Although the male share of casual employment has increased in recent
decades, partly due to the increased participation of students, both male and female, in casual work andpartly due to the spread of casual work amongst full-time blue-collar workers, women remain the majority
amongst casual workers. As for casuals in general, so too for on-call casuals: women are likely to be themajority. In addition to the group of on-call casuals, it is also necessary to take account of the group of
permanent part-time employees on minimum-hour arrangements, who – as in the case of permanent parttime employees in general – are likely to be overwhelmingly female.
With respect to age, it is possible to note that, as in the case of New Zealand, the young (15-19, 20-24)
and the old (65+) are over-represented in casual work compared to their weight in the workforce as awhole (Table 9). Indeed, employed 15-19 year olds, many of whom will be full-time students, areoverwhelmingly concentrated in casual jobs. Nevertheless, it would be mistaken to think that casual work
is a phenomenon confined to these age groups; most casual workers, as indicated in Table 9, are in factdrawn from other age groups. Does on-call work have a similar age profile? It is difficult to determine
whether the group of on-call casuals is more likely to come from the younger age groups. If they are fulltime students, young workers may find it difficult to accommodate irregular schedules, but younger
workers in general may have less capacity to resist employer imposition of irregular schedules. On theother hand, we can be more confident that the permanent part-time employees who are on minimum-hourarrangements are predominantly made up of partnered women, often with caring responsibilities, whocome from older age groups.
Table 9.

Casual and permanent employees (excluding OMIEs), Australia, by sex, age andqualifications, August 2016
Casual‘000% of casual
employees

Permanent
‘000

% of
permanent
employees

All employees
%

Sex:
Male
Female1166.81294.547.4
52.6

3853.53499.6

52.4
47.6

51.2
48.8

Age:
15-19
20-24
25-34
35-44
45-54
55-64
65 and over

469.2
450.1
507.3
368.0
311.4
265.1
90.1

19.1
18.3
20.6
15.0
12.7
10.8
3.7

153.8
638.3
1954.71775.7
1626.31044.4
159.3

2.1
8.7
26.6
24.1
22.1
14.2
2.2

6.3
11.1
25.1
21.8
19.8
13.3
2.5

Qualifications:
Below year 12
Year 12
Vocational certificate
Advanced diploma/ diploma
Bachelor degree
Graduate diploma/ graduate certificate
Postgraduate degree

652.0
639.6
444.5
222.4
326.3
41.6
90.3

26.5
26.0
18.1
9.0
13.3
1.7
3.7

973.2
1165.21571.6836.2
1757.3
317.1
616.3

13.2
15.8
21.4
11.4
23.9
4.3
8.4

16.6
18.4
20.5
10.8
21.3
3.6
7.2

Total

2460.9100.07353.2100.0

9811.7

Source: ABS 2016a, Cat. No. 6333.0.

Data for casual workers suggest a wide range of qualifications, though with a higher prevalence of lower
qualifications (Table 9). Though it is not surprising that casual employees are more likely than permanent

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

17
employees to be less qualified, it is necessary to keep in mind the age profile of casual workers and thefact that many younger workers in casual employment will be students currently completing school or
post-school courses. The qualification profile of on-call workers is likely to resemble that of casual
workers.
The increasingly large number of temporary migrant workers appears only in part in the official statistics.
Case-study evidence and occasional surveys indicate that temporary migrant workers are
disproportionately concentrated in casual jobs in industries such as food services, horticulture andcleaning (Mares 2016). International students are similar in many ways to local tertiary students, often
taking up casual part-time and indeed undeclared jobs as waiters and kitchen hands in cafes andrestaurants in the large urban centres (Campbell et al. 2016). But they can also be found in cleaning andin parts of the retail sector, eg convenience stores and service stations. Working holiday makers are foundin similar jobs, especially in food services, but they also join workers on the dedicated program forhorticulture, the Seasonal Worker Program, in working as seasonal workers at harvest time, generally ona casual basis (Howe et al. 2017; Underhill and Rimmer 2016). It seems likely that much casual workfor temporary migrant workers would be on-call. Certainly, variable schedules are a characteristic featureof work in food services, and variability in response to employer needs is a persistent source of complaint
from employees. Harvest work is seasonal, with long daytime hours, but it also has an on-call element,
as workers must wait around for employers to be ready and the harvest to begin, and they must interrupt
their work if the weather turns bad or delivery trucks break down.
Average working hours and schedules
On-call work is oriented to part-time hours. This is true of course for the minority of permanent part-time
employees that is included in the count of on-call workers. In addition, most (70.1%) casual employees
are classified as part-time rather than full-time (Table 7), and it is likely that most on-call casuals, like allcasuals, will be in part-time schedules. Data for non-managerial employees in May 2016 indicate thatcasual employees in aggregate, ie both part-time and full-time, had a weekly average of 19.4 hours paid
for as opposed to 23.2 for permanent part-time employees and 39.2 for permanent full-time employees(ABS 2017c).
Table 10 indicates that a large minority of casual employees is involved in short hours or even marginal
part-time work. Thus, a substantial minority (43.6%) usually worked less than 20 hours per week (in mainjob) in 2016, whereas this was true for only 5.7% of permanent employees. Similarly, just over a quarter(25.6%) usually worked only one or two days a week (in all jobs) in 2015, in comparison with 3% ofpermanent employees. This leaning to short hours defines a difference with permanent part-time
employees, who are generally employed with more substantial part-time hours.

18

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102


Table 10.

Casual and permanent employees (excluding OMIEs), working-time patterns,
Australia, August 2016 and August 2015 (thousands and percentages)
Casual‘000%

Permanent‘000%

All employees%

Hours usually worked (main job): a)
0-9
10-19
20-29
30-34
35-39
40+
Total

475.9
597.2
515.0
178.4
260.8
427.9
2460.9

19.3
24.3
20.9
7.2
10.6
17.4
100

70.0
346.1
684.7
489.7
2257.83505.47353.2

1.0
4.7
9.3
6.7
30.7
47.7
100

5.5
9.6
12.2
6.8
25.7
40.1
100 (9811.7)

Number of days usually worked in all
jobs: b)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Total

202.6
393.9
414.8
282.6
799.2
136.1
98.5
2326.3

8.7
16.9
17.8
12.1
34.4
5.9
4.2
100

51.1
170.3
425.9
641.2
5192.4491.1
283.0
7251.0

0.7
2.3
5.9
8.8
71.6
6.8
3.9
100

2.7
5.9
8.8
9.6
62.5
6.5
4.0
100 (9575.4)

Whether worked weekdays and/or
weekends in all jobs: b)
Weekdays only
Weekends only
Both weekdays and weekends
Total

1153.8132.2
1040.32326.3

49.6
5.7
44.7
100

5281.6
32.1
1937.47251.0

72.8
0.4
26.7
100

67.2
1.7
31.1
100 (9575.4)

Continuous duration with current
employer/ business: a)Fewer than 6 months
6 months to under 12 months
1-2 years
3+ years
Total

584.4
434.8
691.9
748.8
2460.9

23.7
17.7
28.1
30.4
100

548.0
572.6
1393.74837.57353.2

7.5
7.8
19.0
65.8
100

11.3
10.3
21.3
56.9
100 (9811.7)

Source: a) ABS 2016a, Cat. No. 6333.0; b) ABS 2015, Cat. No. 6333.0.

Casual employees are more likely to work at non-standard times of the day and week than other
employees. Weekend work has been an important focus of attention, because of sustained pressure from
employer groups seeking a reduction in penalty rates for weekend work. ABS data (Table 10) indicatethat casual employees were less likely to work on weekdays and more likely to work on weekends. Thisis consistent with recent analysis using HILDA data, which suggests that casual employees are more
likely than other employees to usually work on the weekends and that they constitute over one third(35.5%) of employees who usually worked weekends (FWC 2016, 17). Weekend work is particularly
prevalent in retail and accommodation and food services (FWC 2016, 18). Just as in other industries,
casual employees were more likely than permanent employees to undertake the weekend work –constituting 40.9% of those who usually worked weekends in retail and 68.6% in accommodation andfood services (FWC 2016, 21-22). We know little of the working-time conditions of these casuals. But
HILDA data suggest that many workers in these two industries were on schedules in which the days

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varied and that workers with varying days of the week were overwhelmingly engaged in weekend work
(FWC 2016, 19-20). This suggests that the casuals involved in weekend work were likely to be on-callrather than regular casuals.
Data for casual employees indicate that many have been in the job for a relatively short time, with 23.7%
in their job for less than six months in August 2016 (Table 10). However, as in the case of New Zealand,
it is striking that many casual employees have been employed in their casual job for relatively long
periods of time, just like permanent workers. On-call casuals are more likely to be found in jobs withshort elapsed tenure, but we should not rule out the possibility that, like permanent employees and likeregular casuals, some on-call casuals can build up periods of lengthy tenure in their casual job.

NewZealandandAustralia:Similaritiesanddifferences
Descriptive profiles of on-call work for New Zealand and Australia are hampered by inadequate data.
But the available information points to strong similarities, with a few differences.
Both New Zealand and Australia have a high incidence of on-call work. A guesstimate for New Zealandis around 10% of employees, while in Australia the proportion is likely to be even higher. Both countries
offer wide opportunities for the development of on-call work patterns. These can emerge within theframework of temporary employment contracts, including in particular the category of casual. But they
can also occur within the framework of permanent employment contracts. A close association of on-callwork with casual work is evident in both countries. However, in New Zealand a substantial number of
on-call workers are found in other forms of temporary work and in permanent part-time employment. In
Australia, the overwhelming majority of on-call workers are in casual employment (where they are joinedby an even larger group of ‘regular’ casuals), though there is an additional contribution – smaller than in
New Zealand – from on-call workers in permanent part-time employment. Zero-hour work arrangements
are present within both casual and permanent work in New Zealand, but they are confined to casual workin Australia.
The data do not allow any confident descriptions of trends for on-call work. Both countries show stability
in the overall proportion of casual work, but growth may have occurred in areas hidden from the aggregate
statistics. Data on job and worker characteristics are largely derived from data on casual employment andmay therefore present a skewed picture. In New Zealand these data risk missing the many on-call workers
outside the boundaries of the casual employment contract, while in Australia they risk conflating on-callcasuals with the large group of regular casuals. Insofar as it is possible to make inferences from the data,
the two countries have similar patterns, with on-call workers used most intensively in particular industries
such as accommodation and food services and agriculture, forestry and fishing. The jobs are often, though
not always, frontline service sector jobs and are generally associated with part-time schedules. On-callworkers are often younger workers and/ or female workers with lower-level qualifications who are
engaged in part-time work schedules, which often spill over into or are confined to non-standard times
such as weekends.

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3. Impact for workers
This section considers the impact of on-call and related forms of casual work for workers in New Zealandand Australia. It uses a range of evidence, including quantitative data, where they are available. But themain sources are first-hand accounts, programs of in-depth interviews and case studies in specificenterprises and industries. This qualitative evidence does not allow firm conclusions, but it succeeds in
capturing many diverse experiences of on-call work. As such, it is useful for identifying descriptive
patterns and causal mechanisms that can be further examined in later research.
New Zealand has produced useful first-hand accounts of on-call work (C. King 2016a, b; NZCTU 2013),
a few case studies of on-call work patterns in sectors such as call centres (Hannif and Lamm 2005), andindirect evidence from the union campaign in fast food (Treen 2014, 2015). Qualitative research on oncall work in Australia is relatively rich. Studies include first-hand accounts (eg. Sidoti 2015), programsof in-depth interviews (McGann et al. 2012, 2016; Pocock et al 2004a; Smith and Ewer 1999), and casestudies that describe on-call working-time patterns in key sectors such as hotels (Bohle et al. 2004;
McNamara et al. 2011; Oxenbridge and Moensted 2011), licenced clubs (Lowry 2001), a theme park
(Townsend et al. 2003), retail (Campbell and Chalmers 2008; Campbell and Price 2016; Price 2016;
Whitehouse et al. 1997), relief teaching in secondary schools (Bamberry 2011), hospital nursing (Allan
1998, 2000), domiciliary aged care (Clarke 2015) and manufacturing (Brosnan and Thornthwaite 1998).
Most qualitative studies in the two countries describe on-call casual work, but some cite examples frompermanent work and from work organized through temporary agencies or as ‘sham contracting’.
The focus of this section is on objective characteristics of the job and the implications of thesecharacteristics for workers. It is true that there are other levels of analysis that are also relevant todiscussion of impacts on workers. These include subjective and objective factors associated with thesocial location of workers outside the workplace, such as the broader regulatory system for social
protection in each country, household structures, and labour market conditions. 12 These factors arereferred to in passing, but this section does not attempt to systematically incorporate them into thediscussion.
Most analysis of on-call work describes poor quality job characteristics that imply negative impacts foron-call workers (ILO 2016). This section similarly canvases disadvantages that lead to negative impacts,
but it also examines possible advantages, which might be associated with positive impacts for workers.
The main potential advantage concerns individual employee control of working-time schedules, which inturn is seen as facilitating employee-oriented flexibility. This section therefore pays special attention toevidence concerning the extent and nature of employee control of on-call schedules.
To help in organizing the discussion of impacts for workers, this section uses a conceptual framework
couched in terms of labour (in)security, disaggregating this into six dimensions: 1. Employment; 2.
Earnings; 3. Occupational safety and health; 4. Training; 5. Representation; and 6. Hours (ILO 2016, 1820). Control over schedules is an aspect of hours insecurity, but it is considered here in a separate subsection.

Employment

12 Campbell and Price (2016) stress the difference between precarious work and precarious workers. They point to factors thatcan either cushion or amplify the insecurities that stem from objective characteristics of the job. For example, earnings insecurity
due to low and irregular wages in an on-call job may be cushioned by access to an alternative source of income, such as
household transfers from a parent or partner or individual access to savings or social security (an aged pension or unemployment
benefits). Piasna et al. (2017) similarly speak of the need for analyses of job quality to separate levels of analysis, carefully
distinguishing jobs, workers, the legal framework, welfare policy and structural features of the labour market.

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Employment insecurity “centres on concerns over remaining employed, or the risk of losing incomeearning work” (ILO 2016, 19). For on-call workers, employment insecurity comprises a twofold risk: a)
the risk of losing the job; and b) the risk of losing paid hours within the job.
At first glance employment insecurity for on-call workers might appear to vary by the type of employment
contract. Employment insecurity appears to be highest for casual employees, given that ease of dismissal(or failure to rehire) is central to the notion of casual work. Because the employer is under no obligation
to offer work, on-call casuals are at constant risk of losing shifts and the job as a whole. In principle, oncall workers who have a permanent employment contract have higher employment protection (after
completion of probationary periods), and they could bring either a personal grievance case (in New
Zealand) or an unfair dismissal case (in Australia) in the event of unfair dismissal. Even if this were aneasy process, it is noteworthy, however, that employment protection does not protect on-call workers
with permanent contracts from employment insecurity in the second sense, ie. a partial loss of shifts that
falls short of dismissal. A partial loss of paid hours is a constant risk for all employees with a large oncall component to their working patterns. If the loss pushes hours (and income) below the threshold thatthe worker wants or needs for survival, then it may be seen as equivalent to a complete loss of the job.
The risk of losing shifts is the most immediate and pervasive element of employment insecurity within
on-call work. The qualitative literature in New Zealand and Australia points to a widespread awarenessamongst on-call workers of their lack of protection against such loss. One consequence is that they arevulnerable to management use of shift allocation as a disciplinary device. The literature cites examples
where paid hours recede (and perhaps even disappear), not because of fluctuations in demand but rather
because of ‘punishment’ by managers after employees have refused a shift, called in sick, had anargument with a supervisor, or perhaps complained of underpayment or injury (Bamberry 2011, 59;
Campbell et al. 2016, 290; Pocock et al. 2004a, 56-58, 104-105; Price 2016, 925). Controlling the numberof hours of on-call workers, ie altering them either as punishment or reward, emerges from the qualitative
literature as a central management mechanism for enforcing availability and ensuring compliance in theon-call workforce (Hannif and Lamm 2005, 337-338). Many on-call workers declare that they are acutely
aware of these management practices and judge that they have little capacity to exercise ‘voice’ at theworkplace or to exercise rights such as declining an unreasonable employer call-in for work (Bohle et al.
2004, 22; Oxenbridge and Moensted 2011, 19, 22). A cinema attendant cited in the NZCTU report, who
was on a permanent contract with no guaranteed minimum, explained that “everyone knows that if you
call in sick too often or get offside with the manager, they will slowly cut your shifts. They silently fireyou.” (NZCTU 2013, 37).
One issue often linked to employment insecurity concerns the prospect that on-call and related forms ofcasual work might be a bridge to more regular employment. The issue is extensively discussed inAustralia, primarily in relation to casual work. One study suggests that a casual job is better thanunemployment as a stepping-stone to permanent work, at least for men (Buddelmeyer and Wooden 2011).
A fuller analysis was conducted by Watson (2013), who uses longitudinal HILDA data to examine a wide
range of transition probabilities for casual employees (excluding full-time students). HILDA records offorms of employment at annual intervals provide some evidence of individual movement into a permanent
job, but there is also substantial continuity as well as substantial movement into joblessness(unemployment and withdrawal from the labour force) (2013, 12). Watson concludes that many casual
employees are trapped in casual employment, whether continuous casual or just intermittent casual workwithin heavily casualised sectors such as accommodation and food services. His analysis indicates thatthe crucial factors affecting transition probabilities are not so much human capital factors such as
education but rather systemic factors such as industry and region (2013, 12, 21-23). More recently,
HILDA data have been used in an expansive way to look at longer-term pathways rather than just annualtransitions. The analysis concludes that bridges and traps are roughly equally prevalent for casual
employees, though demographic groups that are especially vulnerable, such as less-qualified women, aremore likely to experience traps than bridges (McVicar et al. 2017).

Earnings

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Earnings insecurity stems from “earnings that are so low that they do not provide a ‘minimum living
wage’ or from uncertainty with respect to future earnings if, for example, work is uncertain” (ILO 2016,19). As the definition suggests, earnings insecurity incorporates different components. The level of wages
is one issue, composed of both low hourly rates and low aggregate weekly pay, but a second issue is thevariability in aggregate weekly pay, which can drive earnings below a threshold needed for sustenance.
The qualitative literature suggests that low weekly earnings and irregularity of weekly earnings are more
important than low hourly rates. One New Zealand worker with twelve years’ experience as a zero-hour
worker in hospitality and other service sector jobs drew attention to the centrality of irregular hours andthe limited relevance of efforts to address the problem of low wages by raising the hourly wage rate, as
in the campaign for a ‘living wage’. Though such an increase would be helpful, she argues that thefundamental policy challenge is to do with the number and irregularity of hours (and income):higher wages don’t mean anything if your employer cannot – or outright refuses – to guarantee
you consistent hours. I have never had one employer in the service sector guarantee me even one
hour of work a week. I once earnt New Zealand’s living wage of $19.25 an hour… at a
[hospitality] job… My shifts at my ‘living wage’ job ranged from one hour of work to five. It
cost me $12 just to get to this job on public transport, so sometimes I’d come away from work at
the end of the day having made almost no money at all. (C. King 2016b)
Earnings insecurity is a strong theme in the qualitative literature concerning on-call and related forms ofcasual work. It overlaps with and underpins the employment insecurity discussed in the previous subsection. Most on-call workers are low-wage workers, who – because their hours are variable – cannot
rely on achieving an adequate number of hours each week in order to maintain living standards. This
makes it difficult to plan financially. They feel vulnerable to downward movement in their hours andincome, which would quickly start to squeeze their living standards. In effect, they continually confront
time-related underemployment, whether as a current state or as a fearful future prospect. If they alreadysee themselves as underemployed, they may be looking both ways at once – eager to secure more hours
and income as well as fearful of a reduction in hours and income (Pocock et al. 2004a; Treen 2015).
Some studies (Campbell and Price 2016; Hannif and Lamm 2005; McGann et al. 2016; Pocock et al.
2004a) note that access to alternative income, generally through private household transfers, can cushion
the negative impacts of on-call patterns of work for some on-call workers. The immediate effect is tocushion earnings insecurity (though the studies also suggest a more general effect in dampening negative
attitudes to other insecurities). Access to an alternative income lessens the fear concerning downward
variation in hours and income. It is important to note, however, that this is a feature of the social locationof the worker, which does not alter the objective characteristics of the job; it merely lessens the salienceof certain objective insecurities and strengthens the ability of some workers to tolerate poor quality work
conditions. Moreover, as most studies point out, access to an alternative income is only relevant for aminority of on-call workers. For example, a program of interviews with 72 workers in casualised jobs inregional Victoria notes the presence of a minority of interviewees who were less reliant on income fromtheir employment and tended to be positive about their work experiences (McGann et al. 2016, 772-3).
The study suggests, however, that most interviewees were reliant on the job for income, and that lack ofprotection against dismissal and the uncertainty of the work scheduling had strong negative effects forthese workers. Because workers were fearful of losing shifts, they often experienced stress and engaged
in behaviour that undermined their own health and well-being, such as coming to work when sick, failingto report work-related injuries and not taking any (unpaid) leave. The authors conclude that “thecombination of perceived job insecurity and the intermittent and uncertain scheduling of work patterns
gives rise to psychosocial stress by depriving non-standard workers of the temporal and economic
resources needed to plan their lives” (2016, 779).
On-call workers are often subject to forces that amplify rather than cushion earnings insecurity. One issue
here is vulnerability to employer non-compliance, which can lead to underpayments (see Appendix A).
Similarly, the fact of casual rather than permanent status can exacerbate earnings insecurity. Because
casual workers, for example, lack access to protections that can smooth earnings and are only paid forhours at the workplace, they are particularly vulnerable to the implications of working-time variation

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either as a result of employer decisions to change the number of hours or as a result of the interventionof outside events such as public holidays, bad weather, annual plant closedowns, sickness and personal
emergencies.13
Aggregate weekly earnings for casual employees are briefly discussed in New Zealand. Data suggest thatdifferences in weekly earnings are stark, with casual employees having median weekly earnings of $340
compared to $964 for permanent employees (Statistics New Zealand 2017, 10). There is a similar
discussion in Australia, which demonstrates that mean and median weekly earnings for casual employees
compared to permanent employees are much lower (Markey and McIvor 2015, 26-28; Markey et al. 2015,26-35). A recent analysis using HILDA panel data finds that casual employment, compared to permanent
employment, is associated with increased financial hardship (defined in terms of indicators such as
inability to pay rent/ mortgage on time and asking friends/family for financial help) for both men andwomen. The key factors for explaining the link, especially for men, are the fewer hours of work and thehigher vulnerability to employment shocks (job loss and job change) (Swami 2017; see also Buchler et
al. 2009, 285).
Though hourly wages are less important than weekly earnings in defining the experience of low wages,
data on hourly wages remain useful in indicating wage gaps or penalties that attach to particular types of
employment. In New Zealand SoWL data for mean and median hourly earnings point to a large
differential between casual employees (and temporary employees in general) and permanent employees(Dixon 2011, 11; SoWL 2012). Recent data for June 2016 confirm the differential, indicating that medianhourly earnings for casual employees were $16.67, for seasonal employees $18.50, for temporary agency
employees $20.62 and for permanent employees $24.00 (Statistics New Zealand 2017, 10). Recent
analysis of hourly earnings using both waves of SoWL suggests that after controlling for characteristicsof the worker, their job and their occupation/industry there was still a substantial unexplained wage gap
for casual employees and temporary agency employees (Pacheco and Cochrane 2016; see Dixon 2011,11-15).
In Australia the casual loading on the hourly rate (Appendix A) is sometimes touted as a major benefit
for casual employees, indeed as a ‘wage premium’. This is at odds with the contemporary understandingof the casual loading, which sees it as a monetary equivalent to some, but not all, missing benefits ofpermanent employment – primarily paid leave (eg annual holidays, public holidays, sick leave, etc.) but
also redundancy payments and termination notice and more-difficult-to-quantify benefits such as loss ofpromotion and training opportunities (Productivity Commission 2015, vol. 2, 805). 14 In principle,
therefore, a 25% increment for casual employees should express an equal financial compensation for
casual and permanent employees. As it turns out in practice, the 25% casual loading is only a shadowy
presence in the data. Data for total cash earnings of non-managerial employees in 2016 show that casual
employees earned an average $30 per hour, permanent part-time employees earned $33.40 per hour andpermanent full-time employees earned 39.40 per hour (ABS 2016c). Quantitative analysis indicates thathourly wage rates for casuals are well below the expected level, even after controlling for job
13 The in-depth interviews conducted by Pocock and her colleagues identified seven negative aspects of pay for casual workers:
1. unpredictable pay through irregular or inadequate work; 2. low pay arising from vulnerability to dismissal and arbitrary
reductions in working hours; 3. lower pay through under-classification and low base rates; 4. lack of access to, and inadequacyof, the casual loading; 5. low pay through delays and gaps in being paid; 6. lower pay through labour hire employment; and 7.
underpayment and enforcement of legal rates (Pocock et al. 2004a, 124-134).
14 The casual loading does not compensate for all detriments associated with casual employment. As the FWC points out:
Although the casual loading for which modern awards provide notionally compensates for the financial benefits of
those NES entitlements which are not applicable to casuals, this does not take into account the detriments which …
may attach to the absence of such benefits, particularly for adult long-term casuals who are financially dependent on
their casual employment. These include, … attending work while sick and not taking recreational leave because ofconcerns about whether any absence from work will endanger future employment, the incapacity to properly balance
work and attending to personal and caring responsibilities and commitments, changes in working hours without notice,and potential for the sudden loss of what had been regular work without any proper notice or adjustment payment.
Additionally, … there are other detriments associated with casual employment of this nature, including the lack of acareer path, diminished access to training and workplace participation, poorer health and safety outcomes and theinability to obtain loans from financial institutions. (FWC 2017, 160)

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characteristics such as occupation and standard human capital differences such as age and qualifications.
The analysis concludes therefore that casual workers can be seen to suffer a ‘wage penalty’ in comparison
with equivalent permanent workers (Watson, 2005; see also Withers et al. 2015, 62-71). The wage
penalty for casual employees is most pronounced at the bottom of the wages distribution, where mostcasual employees are concentrated, producing what one study describes as a multiple disadvantage:“these workers, who are not entitled to paid leave, who are more likely to experience fluctuating earnings
and involuntary job loss, and already earn a relatively low wage, are further disadvantaged by the wage
penalty compared to similar permanent workers” (Lass and Wooden 2017b, 17).15

Occupationalsafetyandhealth
Insecurity in relation to occupational safety and health arises when workers are unprotected or
insufficiently protected against hazards, work-related diseases and injuries (ILO 2016, 19).
A major 2008 report in New Zealand notes the link between temporary forms of employment and poorer
health and safety outcomes for workers (Bohle et al. 2008, 59-71). The report refers to the literature on
the risks associated with irregular hours, noting that the negative impact on health is intensified whencontrol over schedules is low (Bohle et al. 2008, 56). This suggests that on-call workers, whose schedules
are frequently adjusted, who must often adapt to new and perhaps unfamiliar work environments and wholack many basic rights and entitlements, are likely to be at higher risk of workplace injury and poor healthoutcomes compared to other workers in that occupation or industry. However, little research on the topic
of variable schedules has taken place in New Zealand. Most attention has been on full-time blue-collar
work and the risk of workplace injuries, exacerbated by contracting, in industries such as mining andforestry (Lamare et al. 2015).
In Australia, research often notes the connection between precarious forms of employment such a casual
work and poor occupational safety outcomes (McNamara 2006). This is usefully extended to on-callpatterns of work in subsequent studies. Bohle and his colleagues point to the negative impact of irregularschedules and lack of control on poor work-life balance, which can in turn lead on to unhealthy behavior
and negative health outcomes (Bohle et al. 2004; see also McGann et al. 2016; Muurlink 2016;
Oxenbridge and Moensted 2011).

Training
Training insecurity is to do with “not having access, or having inadequate access, to training opportunities
that can develop skills to help promote professional development and career advancement” (ILO 2016,20). Workers in on-call and related forms of casual work could be expected to have less access toemployer-provided training than other workers, both because employers might see training such workers
as unnecessary and because the conditions of on-call work make access to training more difficult(NZCTU 2013, 44). The evidence, however, for training insecurity in New Zealand is limited. One
study, using 2008 SoWL data, found a significant association between temporary employment and alower probability of having undertaken training (Dixon 2011, 17). Subsequent analysis of the pooled datafrom SoWL 2008 and 2012 found, except for seasonal work, no significant difference in the provision of
employer-funded training between the varied forms of temporary employment and permanent
employment (Blumenfeld 2016). In Australia, on the other hand, the evidence that casual employees lack

15 Several factors help to explain the shadowy presence of the casual loading in the data. Illegal practices of underpayment arepart of the answer. It is likely that many casual employees in Australia are located in a zone of employer non-compliance, inwhich they are subject to various underpayments, including non-payment of the casual loading (see Appendix A). Thus, althougha casual loading is prescribed in labour regulation, only half (49.1%) of all casual employees say that they receive a casualloading, 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, 6342.0; see also Pocock et al. 2004a, 130). Other factors include the fact that the permanent employee against
whom the casual employee is compared is often just a nominal figure in an award document, who is rarely encountered inpractice. Insofar as they exist, such comparable permanent employees will in practice be employed on higher job classifications,on over-award or enterprise rather than award rates, and with greater access to increments as a result of service, bonuses,
overtime, and penalty rates for work in non-standard periods (see Markey and McIvor 2015, 26-28; see also Lass and Wooden
2017b, 16).

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access to employer-provided training is strong (eg Draca and Green 2004; Markey and McIvor 2015, 18;
Richardson and Law 2009, 374-380). This is likely to be especially true for on-call casuals, who tend to
be seen as more disposable than regular casual employees.

RepresentationRepresentation insecurity concerns “impediments faced by workers in exercising their rights to be
represented by a trade union and protected by collective agreements, including having insufficient
protection from reprisals over joining a union” (ILO 2016, 20). Representation insecurity is related to‘voice’ and the ability of workers to have a say at work, individually and/ or collectively. On-call workers
are unlikely to be able to exercise much individual power in their employment relations and are therefore
particularly dependent on effective collective representation to acquire voice. Yet, with the exception of
the UNITE campaign in New Zealand (see section 7), collective organization rarely figures in thequalitative literature on on-call work in the two countries.
Quantitative data provide indirect evidence of an overall decline in representation security. New Zealand,
which was affected by the sudden change to a new regime of individual contracting in the early 1990s,
has witnessed a steady decline in collective bargaining coverage and a decline of union density, down to
17.9% in December 2015 (Ryall and Blumenfeld 2016; see Statistics New Zealand 2017). The decline
has particularly affected low-wage and less-skilled workers in industries such as retail andaccommodation and food services, where on-call workers are concentrated. As a result, workers withlittle individual bargaining power and – especially in the case of temporary workers – limited employment
rights, lack the ability to achieve voice through union representation. Nevertheless, unions aim to recruitand represent workers in low-wage industries, with at least some success, as the example of UNITE infast food indicates (see section 7).
Similarly, in Australia labour market deregulation introduced restrictions on trade union recruitment andorganizing, thereby compounding the negative impact of long-term structural changes on trade union
strength and influence (Forsyth and Stewart 2016). Many legal restrictions remain in place. The declineof collective bargaining coverage has been marked, but it is not as severe as in New Zealand, partly
because collective agreements apply to all workers in an enterprise and not just union members. Union
density, on the other hand, has declined even more sharply in Australia than in New Zealand, falling from
40% of employees in 1992 to 15.6% in 2016 (ABS 2016a). The impact of the change is felt most strongly
in areas of low-wage, less-skilled employment, where on-call workers are concentrated. Trade union
density is lower amongst casual employees (4.8%) than amongst permanent employees (19.2%) (ABS2016a). Only a few on-call workers are likely to be union members, though one exception may be casual
nursing, given that union density for all nurses is over 90% (influenced by union provision of professional
indemnity insurance).

Hours
Hours insecurity, or working-time insecurity, is a central feature of on-call work. It is a multi-faceted
phenomenon, which can take markedly different forms. The dimension of number of hours can besummarily defined as …. “too few hours, too many hours, or hours that are constantly changing” (ILO
2016, 19). However, it is also important to consider the impact of on-call schedules that vary in terms of
position and may be scheduled at non-social times of the day or week. Also relevant is the predictabilityof changes in working-time schedules. Also relevant are leave entitlements, given that lack of access tostandard leave entitlements such as annual leave and sick leave can exacerbate hours insecurity.
The most prominent themes in relation to hours insecurity in the New Zealand and Australian literature
relate to too few hours (underemployment) and dislocation of daily life. A related issue is lack of control
over schedules, which is taken up as a separate topic in the next sub-section.
i)

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The problem of ‘too few hours’ is powerfully associated not only with hours insecurity but also withearnings and employment insecurity. The literature indicates that too few hours, or more technically‘underemployment’, takes two powerful forms for on-call workers: on the one hand, it can be experienced
as a current state; on the other hand, even if the worker is currently achieving sufficient hours (andincome), the variability of hours to suit the needs of the employer implies a potent threat ofunderemployment. Underemployment in both senses features prominently in several case-studies (eg.
Campbell and Chalmers 2008; Clarke 2015; Townsend et al. 2003) and is identified as the major aspectof hours insecurity for fast food workers in New Zealand (Treen 2015).
Underemployment as a current state is captured well in quantitative data measuring persons who are inpart-time employment but who state that they would like, and are available, to work more hours (Statistics
New Zealand 2017; ABS 2013). Figures for New Zealand indicate that underemployment is substantial,
reaching 109,600 workers (4.3% of all employed persons) in early 2017. This can be compared with
124,800 unemployed workers in the same quarter. Underemployment is much higher among female
workers (6.3% of employed) than amongst males (2.5%), partly reflecting the fact that more female
workers are part-time. Underemployed part-time workers have slowly increased as a proportion of all
part-time workers, rising from a low of 11.5% in 2006 to over 20% in recent quarters, indicating that thegrowth of underemployment reflects not only the growth of part-time workforce but also, mostimportantly, increasing problems of lack of control of hours amongst part-time workers (Statistics New
Zealand HLFS Q1 2017 Infoshare). Though often linked with unemployment, the overall trajectory ofgrowth is at odds with the trajectory of unemployment, failing to recede after the GFC.
Quantitative data in Australia indicate that underemployed persons in Australia numbered well over one
million (1,106,800) in May 2017, and the underemployment rate, i.e. underemployed persons as apercentage of the labour force, reached 8.6% (ABS 2017, 6202.0). This was amongst the highest
underemployment rates in the OECD – much higher than the equivalent rate in New Zealand and well
above the unemployment rate in Australia of 5.4% in May 2017. The underemployment rate was higher
for women (10.7%) than for men (6.7%), partly reflecting the greater weight of part-time employment
amongst female workers (ABS 2017). Similarly, it was higher for workers in the 15-24 age group, again
partly reflecting the strong presence of part-time employment in the employment patterns of young age
groups (ABS 2016b). With respect to job characteristics, underemployment was higher for part-timeworkers on short weekly hours compared to longer part-time hours (Campbell et al. 2013, 27). Perhaps
most relevant is the comparison between casual and permanent part-time employees. Unpublished
HILDA data for 2015 suggest that almost half (48%) of all casual part-time employee reported that theywanted more hours of work. However, the proportion of part-time permanent employees that wasunderemployed was also high, at around one quarter, indicating that permanent status may offer betterworking-time conditions but it does not always offer an adequate level of control over hours (Watson
2017, 22; see also Markey and McIvor 2015, 29-30; Campbell et al 2013, 31-32).
The Australian data point to a very substantial problem of underemployment. Trend data suggest that theunderemployment rate rose rapidly in the recession of the early 1990s but did not fall back in thesubsequent recovery, and it has surged again in the wake of the GFC in 2008-2009 (Campbell et al. 2013,23-25, 27). The increase in the number of underemployed persons partly reflects the increasing numberof part-time workers in the workforce, but it also reflects the increasing proportion of part-time workers
who are discontented with the insufficient number of their working hours. According to ABS data,
underemployed persons as a proportion of all part-time employed has risen steadily in recent years,
reaching 28.3% in May 2017 (ABS 2017). This was substantially higher than the comparable figure for
New Zealand.16

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16 Part-time workers who are underemployed may reluctantly take up a second or third job as a possible solution to the lack ofhours and income. One New Zealand on-call worker notes:
Working multiple jobs at once is the only type of ‘job security’ I’ve ever had. You learn that an employer has less powerover you economically if you have a Plan B. Working two or even three jobs means I have more chance of scrounging
together enough cash to survive. (C. King 2016b; see also Pocock et al. 2004a, 67)
Australian data indicate that multiple jobholding affects around 6% of the total workforce, which is relatively high in cross-national
comparison (Bamberry and Campbell, 2012, 295, 297) and slightly higher than comparable figures for New Zealand (Bohle etConditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

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ii)

Dislocation of daily life

Qualitative studies often refer to concerns about a dislocation of daily life and disruption of time withfamily and friends. Schedules that vary from day to day or week to week, especially when they spill over
into non-standard times, tend to disrupt regular non-work commitments (De Bruin and DuPuis 2004, 2931). Especially when workers have little control and notice of schedule variation is short, planning life
outside of work becomes difficult (Bohle et al. 2004). Workers’ capacity to synchronize non-work
activities, including time with family and friends, is reduced. This affects workers with caring
responsibilities most heavily, but it also interferes with social life and friendship connections, as shownin the findings from a longitudinal study of young persons in precarious post-school employment inAustralia (Woodman 2012). Since long hours of availability and waiting on a call into work also interferewith the normal rhythms of daily life, the problem extends beyond the variation in actual working hours.
An expanding quantitative literature in Australia examines the impact of job characteristics on work-lifebalance. Though the focus is often on characteristics such as long hours and work overload, together withwork in non-standard times such as the weekend, irregular schedules and control over schedules (andworkload) are also identified as important factors (eg. Allan et al. 2007; Bohle 2016; Skinner and Pocock2014). A study using HILDA data suggests that weekend work and irregular shifts are linked to workfamily conflict for employed fathers, though not for employed mothers (Hosking and Western 2008,22).17
Leave arrangements, both paid and unpaid, are generally designed to assist workers in reconciling paid
work with other aspects of life, especially caring responsibilities. Yet workers in on-call and related formsof casual work tend to have less access to paid and unpaid leave entitlements, such as annual leave, sickleave and parental leave. Moreover, they may be reluctant to take even the few leave arrangements towhich they are entitled, for fear of being penalized by the employer and losing shifts or losing the job on
their return to work. This lack of access to leave arrangements means that it is more difficult for on-callworkers than for regular workers to match their paid work to their lives outside work.
One aspect of the dislocation of social life concerns the way in which on-call work adjusts the temporalboundaries normally associated with paid work. Most attention is given to the way in which the boundary
between an employee’s work time and his/her own time shifts and becomes more blurred, as varying
schedules and requirements for long hours of availability spill over into the worker’s own time. But it isalso possible to note changes in other temporal boundaries, such as that dividing paid hours from all otherhours. Whereas in standard jobs this boundary is situated outside the core hours of labour at theworkplace, embracing additional paid hours for training, sickness, annual leave and other forms of leave,
the zone of paid hours is drastically reduced in on-call and related forms of casual work, so that only
hours of direct labour at the workplace tend to be remunerated and other periods – even when necessary
for paid work – no longer qualify for payment. Indeed, in several respects the impact of on-call and related
forms of casual work is even more radical, fostering in effect new hours of labour or quasi-labour thatare deprived of payment. This is most obvious when agreements on availability require workers toundertake long hours of unpaid, quasi-work time waiting for text messages or phone calls from the
al. 2008, 62-63). It is unevenly distributed across forms of employment, with most multiple jobholders classified as part-time intheir main job. HILDA data – which produce higher overall estimates of the significance of multiple jobholding – indicate that “in2012, 12.3% of casual employees worked a second job, in comparison with 7.6% of permanent part-time employees and 6.2%
of permanent full-time employees” (DofE 2015, 4). Qualitative interviews designed to explore reasons for taking up second or
third jobs suggest, however, that only a small minority of the workers involved in multiple job holding could be considered oncall workers in their main job (Bamberry and Campbell 2012).
17 The same study notes that casual employment tends to be associated with less work-family conflict for both fathers andmothers, but this is largely due to the fact that casual work is more often part-time; once hours are controlled for the difference
disappears (Hosking and Western 2008, 21). Other studies look directly at casual work, seeking to test whether casual work is
indeed, as suggested by some arguments, more ‘family friendly’. After controlling for hours, studies using AWALI data on worklife interference support the results of the Hosking and Western study (Pocock and Charlesworth 2015, 115-118; Skinner andPocock 2014, 34-35). Skinner and Pocock (2014, 35) conclude that “these findings show that casual employment contracts do
not offer advantages to employees with regard to their work-life relationship”.

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employer. Other examples of unpaid work time occur when on-call workers are called in to work but thenstood down or sent home after only a few paid hours or indeed no paid hours at all. Other examples, often
cited in domiciliary care, include waiting time between visits, time travelling between visits and any extra
time with clients. Similarly, on-call workers may be expected to spend unpaid time setting up or closing
down work. Thus working hours for on-call workers can in fact be far longer than might initially seem tobe the case from a simple measure of paid working hours.18

Controlofschedules
The extent and nature of employee control of schedules is a crucial issue in the assessment of on-callwork. Control over schedules deserves special attention for a range of reasons. It is important both initself (Kalleberg 2011, 158-9) and as it relates to other aspects of insecurity, given that lack of control
within the job is commonly identified as a central channel for negative impacts of work on worker wellbeing (Bohle 2016; Lyness et al. 2012; Muurlink, 2016), and it figures as one axis of the influential job
strain or demand-control model of Karasek (1979). It is also an important dimension of cross-national
differences (Berg et al. 2004).
The fact that on-call work is defined in terms of working-time patterns that vary to suit business needs
implies a substantial level of employer control over schedules, but this does not exclude the possibilityof at least a modicum of employee control.19 The precise amount of employee control is likely to differ
from one case to the next. On-call workers may be able to exercise some control through negotiation at
the commencement of an agreement, eg. in announcing limits to their availability and aiming for agreed
parameters that would encourage regularity in their rosters and allow some planning. Such negotiation ismore likely amongst permanent part-time employees, especially in Australia, where such employees havea right to a regular roster. Nevertheless, even in the case of casual employees there is likely to be a processof informal negotiation around availability, in which employers can be more or less willing toaccommodate employee time constraints and employees can be more or less confident about declaring
their time constraints.
Within the job itself, employee control is likely to be greater when on-call schedules are joined with
provisions such as extended notice of rosters, rights to adjust availability, rights to swap allocated shiftswith other workers, minimum hours or minimum rosters, and good access to paid and unpaid leave
arrangements. Such provisions can be formal or – more commonly – the result of informal
understandings.
The quantitative evidence for both countries provides a mixed picture of employee control. Data on
underemployment can be taken as a useful measure of lack of control for part-time workers over theduration of hours in a job (see Lyness et al. 2012). The data cited in the previous section suggests a
substantial degree of underemployment amongst part-time workers, especially in Australia. But at thesame time, it remains true most part-time workers in the two countries, whether temporary or permanent,
do not state that they are currently underemployed.
Surveys sometimes include questions that relate to control over working-time. In response to a questionin an ABS supplementary survey on whether employees felt able to choose when holidays were taken,
the majority of casual employees stated that they could choose, but the proportion was markedly less thanamongst permanent employees (ABS 2012; see also Campbell and Chalmers 2008, 496). Other ABS
questions include whether casual employees ‘have any say in the days on which they work’. In 2012
18 In this light, on-call and related forms of casual work appear as expressions of a sharp reversal of the historical trend towards

the partial de-commodification of labour; instead they represent a re-commodification of labour (Pocock et al. 2004a; see Fradeand Darmon 2005).
19 The focus here is on employee control over schedules (number and position of working hours). Employee control can bepresent in other aspects. On-call workers, like all workers, generally retain some autonomy is determining the tempo of work,
which is to do with the wage-effort bargain. They may also have a degree of task autonomy. More broadly, workers are able toexercise control through decisions on whether or not to take up the job. Similarly, in deciding whether or not to exit from the job,
workers are able to exercise a degree of control, which can indeed influence employer decisions at work (Smith 2006).

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60.5% of casuals replied ‘no’ (70.4% of full-time casuals; and 55.2% of part-time casuals) (ABS 2012,
6342.0; see also Wilson and Ebert 2013, 270). Also relevant is a question in a 2015 union-sponsoredsurvey asking “how much say do you have over the hours you work?” 40% of casual employees replied‘very little say’; 34% replied ‘some say’; and 26% replied ‘a lot of say’ (Markey and McIvor 2015, 21).
Though these data suggest that many casual employees have limited control over their schedules, theyalso suggest that the extent of control may differ according to the dimension of working-time. Moreover,they indicate an element of internal differentiation, with at least a segment of casual employees, perhaps
the regular casuals, claiming to have control over several dimensions of their schedules.
The qualitative literature suggests that most on-call workers lack control of their schedules. Case studies
and in-depth interviews point to the dominance of employer-oriented flexibility over employee-oriented
flexibility in the work patterns of the majority of on-call and casual workers (Bohle 2016, 96-98;
Campbell and Chalmers 2008; Lowry 2001, 49, 56-57; McLaughlin and Rasmussen 1998; McNamara etal. 2011, 231). Lack of control and lack of employee-oriented flexibility are seen as spanning varieddimensions such as days of work, total hours, notice of changes, start and finish times and breaks (Pocock
et al. 2004a, 58-67). The interview-based study of 72 workers in regional Victoria (McGann et al. 2016)
argues strongly that insecurity made it difficult for the majority of these workers to control and plan theirlives, exerting a coercive effect on agency and voice (2012, 112) and leading to a general sense of
powerlessness (2016, 775; see also Pocock et al. 2004a, 69).
At the same time, the qualitative literature also confirms the existence of on-call workers who state thatthey enjoy a degree of control over their own schedules (Price 2016). For example, a program of in-depth
interviews with 55 casual employees in Australia finds that, though the majority had little say over sayover their working time, a minority group was able to “achieve a real say over working time through areciprocal negotiating relationship with the employer” (Pocock et al. 2004a, 6). The crucial difference
between this minority, which was able to negotiate changes and time off, and the majority was not,however, due to the presence of any enhanced employment rights; instead it could be attributed to theluck of having a supportive manager (a ‘good boss’) (2004a, 6, 68).
The qualitative literature in Australia provides one intriguing example of enhanced employee control
amongst on-call workers – casual nurses who are employed through either temporary agencies or a casual‘bank’ (pool). An early mixed-methods study from the mid-1990s (Allan 1998; see also 2000) shows how
two private hospitals sought to introduce an on-call element into their workforce, with the objective ofsaving costs by matching labour time more economically to fluctuations, often unpredictable, in demand.
The hospitals decided to expand their use of directly employed casual part-time nurses, but they foundthat conditions in the local labour markets, together with the need to preserve high levels of service
quality, meant that the wishes of the nurses had to be carefully accommodated, in one case by offering
inducements such as enhanced choice over where they worked, when they worked and for how long.
Similarly, a 2003 survey of temporary agency workers, mainly unionized workers, uncovered a sharp
divide between most respondents, who felt they had little choice in taking up work with a temporary
agency, and a minority group composed of nurses, whose reasons were influenced by a desire for greater
flexibility, better work-life balance and higher pay (Underhill 2005, 38). The key element indistinguishing the work experiences of casual nurses from other temporary agency workers was greater
working-time control, composed of a greater ability to control total hours, a greater ability to take planned
and unplanned leave and having better advance knowledge of schedules (Underhill 2005, 41-45). The
fortunate situation of nurses is confirmed in subsequent qualitative studies, where many interviewees cite
the “ability to choose shifts”, together with higher pay (for agency nurses) and a desire to avoid thestresses of regular nursing jobs (linked to shiftwork, unnecessarily inflexible schedules, high workloads
and difficulties in accessing leave), as the reason for working as a casual nurse through either temporary
agencies or a casual ‘bank’ (FitzGerald et al, 2007, 232; Lumley et al. 2004, 42; Maher 2013, 175-177;
Skinner et al. 2011, 224).
The nursing studies agree that the crucial background factor was favourable labour market conditions,which increased demand for the professional skills of nurses. This enabled some nurses to distancethemselves from what were seen as the poor working-time conditions associated with direct permanent
jobs and to achieve additional employee-related flexibility through employment as a casual via an agency

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or a nursing bank. Favourable labour market conditions provided increased individual bargaining power
to supplement the collective support that nurses enjoyed as union members. The fact that these labour
market conditions are rare and are absent for most on-call workers in other industries, who are generally
less skilled, whose skills are less in demand, who have less individual or collective bargaining power,
and who appear markedly more disposable, helps to explain why the example of casual nurses appears
unusual.

Summary
The bulk of the evidence presented in this section, both qualitative and quantitative, points to negative
impacts for workers across several objective characteristics of the on-call jobs. Hours insecurity is central,
but income insecurity and employment insecurity are also prominent. There is little evidence of positive
impacts for workers from on-call and related forms of casual work in either New Zealand or Australia.
Beneath the rhetoric of ‘flexible work’, the reality in both countries is one of extensive employer-oriented
flexibility. At the same time, the evidence points to a certain differentiation within the on-call workforce.
It is difficult to capture this diversity in the absence of a dedicated large-scale survey. Nevertheless, it isclear that negative impacts are not uniform; on-call workers differ in their exposure to the various
insecurities and it is possible that at least some on-call workers may escape the majority of negative
impacts. The qualitative discussion points to certain factors that can widen the scope for employee control
in on-call and related forms of casual work. Apart from formal protections, the literature points to theimpact of considerate supervisors and enhanced bargaining strength due to favourable labour market
conditions.

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4. Employers and on-call work
Much of the current literature in New Zealand and Australia identifies employer decisions as the key
factor in explaining the incidence of on-call and related forms of casual work. Employee choices playlittle role. In New Zealand an official document from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and
Employment (MBIE) describes zero-hour contracts as the result of employer decisions, particularly inindustries with intense price competition, fluctuated customer demand and lower-skilled workers, to“drive down costs for employers by shifting it [sic] towards their employees” (MBIE 2015b, 7; cf Tucker
2002, 41-42). It argues that a root cause of the problem is the inherent power imbalance between parties
to the employment agreement, with young and inexperienced or low-qualified workers “less able tonegotiate out of this risk being placed upon them” (MBIE 2015b, 5). In Australia, the focus is on casual
employment, which is similarly explained primarily in terms of employer calculations and choices (Allan
2000; Shomos et al 2013; Weller et al. 1999).
Detailed information on employer decisions is difficult to find. Quantitative data sets have little to say
directly. Unfortunately, the case-study evidence in New Zealand and Australia is also of limited
assistance. Few case studies directly investigate employer labour-use practices, and even fewer reachbeyond conventional Human Resource Management (HRM) practices such as supervision and training
in order to consider the design of work organization and the choice of forms of employment. Case studies
focusing on the workforce (see section 4) are suggestive, but they are subject to selection biases, generallycomprising large firms who are intensive, strategic users and missing both smaller firms and the many
firms that are only occasional users or non-users of on-call and related forms of casual work.
Nevertheless, it is possible to make a few points. Employer decisions need to be considered in context.
Contextual factors can promote one set of employer choices over other alternative choices. As the MBIE
suggests, industry factors are often important. In sectors such as food services, retail and care work,
characterised by frontline service sector work, labour time must be delivered in the right quantities at justthe right time, in line with fluctuations in the demand for the services (Allan 1998, 62-66; see also Boxall
et al 2011). Firms are able to realise powerful labour cost savings if they can standardize labour and matchlabour time as closely as possible to any fluctuations in demand. Such matching is easier for large firms
which can track and predict fluctuations in demand and can develop employment systems in which thework is standardized and simplified and made amenable to careful just-in-time scheduling. This draws
attention to the important role of large firms, often in the context of trends to longer operating hours,
which seek to use on-call work in a strategic way. It also draws attention to the role of technologies, eg
new technologies that allow businesses to monitor labour demand by the minute. Technologies are also
involved in recording availability and rostering, eg. scheduling software. On-call work today rarely
requires the available worker to be physically present for shift allocation as in the ‘shape-up’ or ‘bull
system’ for casual workers on the docks in the first half of the twentieth century (Ahlquist and Levi 2013);
instead, employer decisions can now be communicated by telephone, text message or smartphone app.
Employer use of on-call workers in both countries is bound up with part-time schedules. One usefulbackground account suggests that contemporary employer strategies in the use of part-time workers canbe divided into three types: 1) integration; 2) optimal staffing; and 3) marginalization (Fagan et al. 2014,17-18; ILO 2016, 160). The practice in New Zealand and Australia cannot be attributed to an integration
strategy. Nor is it accurately characterized as the outcome of a marginalization strategy. Instead, it seems
to fit most closely with a negative version of the optimal staffing strategy, in which part-time schedules
are matched to fluctuations in demand. In examining more closely this negative version of the optimal
staffing strategy, it could be useful to draw on the discussion of ‘fragmented time systems’, developed in
the UK to analyse working-time changes in sectors such as retail and domiciliary care. Such ‘fragmented
time systems’ are defined as ‘when employers use strict work scheduling to focus paid work hours at[periods of] high demand … and do not reward or recognise work-related time between periods of highor direct customer demand’ (Rubery et al., 2015: 754).

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National and industry-level regulations can be a crucial influence on employer decisions (Berg et al 2014;
Messenger 2004). Working-time regulation in each country is discussed in more detail in Appendix A.
In general, it appears that working-time regulation in both countries presents few barriers to theemergence of employer strategies based on on-call work. Regulation contains several ‘protective gaps’(Grimshaw et al. 2016) which facilitate low hourly rates and tight scheduling. Nevertheless, certain crossnational differences arise due to different national patterns of labour and social security regulation. The
major example is the way in which differences in employment regulation create a divergence in therelative advantages of casual status for employers in the two countries, which in turn underpins thestriking differences in the size of the casual workforce in the two countries (Campbell and Brosnan 2005,8-11). However, also noteworthy is the different regulation around permanent part-time work, which,until recently, freely allowed employers in New Zealand to introduce zero-hour work arrangements
within the framework of a permanent contract. In Australia by contrast this option was barred andemployers could only introduce zero-hour work arrangements within the framework of casual
employment.
As the examples of casual work and permanent part-time work indicate, labour regulation can be
influential in determining the relative advantage to employers of on-call work vis-à-vis other forms ofwork. Though relative advantages can span several dimensions, cost is often the decisive element.
Possible sources of cost differentials between different forms of employment are:
1. lower firing costs, often linked to regulatory reforms;
2. the impact of thresholds for employer contributions to social security;
3. lower wages and reduced benefits;
4. reduced influence of customary practices and enforcement, linked to the decline of tradeunions; and5. reduced costs in relation to screening hiring and training (ILO 2016, 161-164).
Though each of these factors contributes to the use of on-call work in New Zealand and Australia, it isgenerally agreed that the key source of cost differentials is the opportunity for ‘lower wages and reduced
benefits’ (Campbell and Brosnan 2005; see Shomos et al. 2013). A lower aggregate wage bill can bebased on lower hourly rates, eg. where on-call workers are used instead of overtime hours for full-timeworkers or where workers are underpaid and kept on lower job classifications. But, as suggested above,the major labour cost advantage for employers derives not so much from low hourly rate but rather fromthe opportunity for fragmented and variable scheduling, which allows close matching of the hours of oncall workers to demand patterns, eliminating the need to pay for idle time and thereby reducing theaggregate wage bill (Allan 2000, 189).
Contextual factors are influential, but it is also necessary to keep in mind the margin of discretion that
continues to reside with individual firms. Faced by similar structural constraints, employers may use oncall work to differing degrees and in different ways. This is well exemplified in several case studies thatconsider multiple organizations. For example, a New Zealand study of two call-centres describes bothas intensive users of on-call workers, but the study reveals important differences in their labour-use
practices and the quality of the on-call jobs on offer (Hannif and Lamm 2005; see Oxenbridge andMoensted 2011).

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5. Consequences for businesses and society
at large
The consequences of on-call and related forms of work are the subject of competing arguments frombusiness organizations and workers’ unions in both New Zealand and Australia. On the one hand,business organizations tend to stress the theme of ‘flexibility’, pointing primarily to advantages for
employers associated with these forms of work, which are in turn seen as leading to greater
competitiveness and flow-on benefits for the economy and the society, eg. increased job opportunities.
At the same time, they warn that tighter regulation may risk these advantages and flow-on benefits (egBCA 2012; Lloyd 2012). On the other hand, workers’ unions tend to stress a theme of insecurity or
precariousness, pointing primarily to disadvantages for workers. They suggest that increased insecurity
for individual workers has unfortunate flow-on effects on the economy and society, such as decreased
productivity growth and increased inequality, and they argue for tighter regulation to restrict these formsof employment and to mitigate negative impacts (NZCTU 2013; ACTU 2015, 2016).
These competing sets of arguments often flow past each other without making contact: one side says
flexibility; the other side says precariousness. However, the arguments do sometimes intersect. Thusbusiness organizations may query the disadvantages for employees and argue that in fact on-call work
offers advantages for employees. Just as it is flexible for employers, so too is it flexible for employees.
On the other hand, workers’ unions may query the advantages to employers and argue that on-call workin fact has both short-term and long-term disadvantages for businesses. Just as it is insecure for workers,
so too is it insecure for businesses. The intersection of the arguments opens up an opportunity for fruitfuldebate.
This section briefly considers possible disadvantages for business. The argument in this case has twocomponents. First, it is generally agreed that the introduction of on-call and related forms of work canoffer powerful short-term advantages for businesses, especially in relation to actual and perceived costsavings and ease of management control (ACTU 2016, 32ff). However, these advantages may be
accompanied by disadvantages such as decreased quality and customer service, increased difficulty ofmanaging the workforce, reduced productivity, poor impacts on other workers, and problems of
motivation, commitment and turnover in the on-call workforce. As a result, businesses must wrestle evenin the short-term with tensions and contradictions in their employment practices (Allan 2000, 189-190).
They must make difficult judgments, which are not always successful, especially in small firms that lackdeveloped HRM systems and are perhaps more committed to ideologies of management prerogative. The
second component of the argument opposes the short-term and the long-term. It is argued that even if
firms succeed in resolving tensions in the short-term, they often face long-term problems as aconsequence of the use of on-call and related forms of casual work, such as restricted capacity forinnovation and reduced productivity growth (Buchanan 2004).
The New Zealand and Australian literature offers some support for the argument about potential shortterm disadvantages for businesses in the use of on-call and related forms of casual work. The case-study
in two Queensland private hospitals points to the way in which managers were forced to wrestle with thenegative consequences for service quality of the decision to minimize costs by reducing full-time
employment and expanding the on-call component (casual part-time) of the nursing workforce (Allan
1998). They were obliged to pursue solutions, eg. by targeting nurses from demographic groups that
could more easily tolerate shortened shifts, short notice, and fluctuations in working hours, and then bybuilding a long-term relationship with these groups. A subsequent case study in a Sydney not-for-profit
hospital explores the management dilemmas of juggling multiple, contradictory goals in more depth.
Again, the hospital moved to expand the casual nursing pool as a cost minimization mechanism but soon
encountered a range of negative effects or ‘hidden costs’, including reduced service quality, demotivationof other staff and disruptions due to high turnover. The author points out that agency work, which
involved sacrificing control over recruitment and selection, compounded the negative consequences of34

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casual work and that “the more tenuous the employment relationship, the greater the problems
encountered” (Allan 2000, 199). The hospital tried several responses, including increased training andsupervision but without fully resolving the problem (Allan 2000). Similarly, a study of HRM practices
in one large cinema chain notes the tensions associated with the tightly routinised and standardized workof the casual cinema attendants, primarily full-time tertiary students, who were on on-call rosters. The
study point to the management efforts to counter negative effects, including in particular high turnover,by “giving good performers more shifts and enhancing their career opportunities through promotion”, but
it suggests that the most effective response was to encourage a supportive supervisory style at lower
management levels (Boxall et al. 2011, 1514, 1527).
Similarly, long-term risks to business are frequently sketched out in the New Zealand and Australian
literature. One argument suggests that use of on-call and related forms of casual work is associated with
underinvestment in training and high turnover, which is likely to depress innovation and productivity
growth in the long-term (Buchanan 2004; Markey and McIvor 2015, 16-17). Similarly, there is a danger
that reliance on cost savings in the short-term through cheaper forms of employment discourages thesearch for new forms of work organization and new technologies that can enhance productivity (Markey
and McIvor, 2015). Buchanan (2004) suggests that casualization may allow firms to achieve short-term
productivity gains associated with tighter deployment of labour, but the issue in the long-term must be
sustainable productivity growth by means of the better development of labour. The arguments are
powerful, but hard to document at the level of individual firms.
The broader social impacts of on-call and related forms of casual work are discussed in terms of a risk ofdepressed productivity growth, which would weaken the entire economy in the long-term (Buchanan2004). In New Zealand the MBIE warns that, in spite of their advantages to employers, zero-hourcontracts carry many disadvantages, both to employees and the society as a whole. In particular, they
caution that “the wider labour market may suffer longer term losses due to poor business practice andlowered labour productivity” (MBIE 2015b, 5). In both countries, there is concern that these forms of
employment are contributing to increases in economic and social inequality (NZCTU 2013, 46-47;
Watson 2016).

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6. New regulatory initiatives
On-call work constitutes a major policy and political challenge in most industrialised countries. One
aspect of the challenge concerns the substance of appropriate regulation. Scholars point to the difficultyof finding minimum standards appropriate for ‘flexible’ or casualised work situations in which workingtime is highly fragmented (ILO 2016, 258-261; McCann and Murray 2014; Rubery 2015). Though nocountry offers a full package of protective measures, it is possible to find elements of good practice inindividual cases. Proposed standards include guaranteed minimum hours, which would appear to beparticularly relevant for zero-hour work arrangements (ILO 2016, 258-9; Ilsøe et al. 2017). Other
standards include minimum periods of notice, minimum shift payments, specific compensation payments,
and acquisition of rights and benefits (including conversion rights) after specified periods of employment(de Stefano 2016b, 440-441; ILO 2016). McCann and Murray (2014) mention incentives to employers toencourage more stable working-time patterns. More broadly, specific efforts to narrow the gaps or deficits
separating on-call workers from other workers can be important in softening disadvantages (Rubery 2015;
Grimshaw et al. 2016). Even more broadly, regulation can introduce restrictions on employer use of oncall work (eg by industry, only core activities, maximum proportion of the workforce, maximum durationand maximum hours), which often imply prohibitions in certain circumstances (de Stefano 2016b; ILO
2016, 272-3).20
Another aspect of the challenge concerns the political level. How do good regulatory ideas get introduced,
in a climate of neoliberalism, which is often hostile to state initiatives aimed at protecting workers? Whatis the role of social dialogue and collective bargaining? Is it possible to restore the old coalitions thatpressed back casualised work in the past? Or is it necessary to find new coalitions?
One fundamental issue for regulatory design concerns whether on-call work in general, or perhaps
specific forms such as zero-hour work arrangements, should be viewed as an unacceptable form of work
(Fudge and McCann 2016, 70-73 and passim). Certainly, the structure of the zero-hour arrangement
appears unbalanced and rather anomalous. If there is an ongoing employment relationship, why isn’t theemployer under an obligation to continue to offer work? If zero-hour work arrangements were to be
judged unacceptable, then they could be directly proscribed at national level. Alternatively, they could be
subject to time limits on their duration, perhaps with a requirement that the worker is converted to a morestable contract, as in the regulatory approach to on-call contracts in the Netherlands (Eurofound 2015).
The regulatory system in both countries offers few barriers to the emergence of on-call work and few
restrictions on the practice (Appendix A). Most temporal standards cited above are missing in New
Zealand. However, minimum periods of engagement and limited conversion rights can be found inAustralian awards and agreements. Moreover, the fact that permanent part-time employees in Australia
have certain rights to a regular roster, which would equate to guaranteed minimum weekly hours, acts as
a barrier to the emergence of zero-hour work within the framework of permanent employment.
Both countries have in recent years debated significant new regulatory initiatives in relation to on-calland related forms of casual work. It is useful to review the latest initiatives, in order to assess theirpotential for ameliorating negative impacts for workers.

NewZealandA major new regulatory initiative in New Zealand is aimed at zero-hour contracts. The initiative
proceeded in two phases: it began with a trade union campaign and collective bargaining agreements in
20 The focus is on direct measures. Indirect measures can also be important. For example, raising the level of the minimum
wage and improving provisions for enforcement of underpayments can be a major benefit for many on-call workers. In general,measures to strengthen collective bargaining, social protection and supportive macro-economic policies are useful, but are notconsidered here (ILO 2016, xxiv-xxv).

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the fast food sector, before a wave of public concern pushed the issue into the national parliament, where
amendments to existing employment legislation, contained in an omnibus Employment Standards
Legislation Bill, were passed in March 2016.
i)collective bargaining in fast food

Trade union collective bargaining in the major fast food chains was the starting point for the debate on
zero-hour contracts in New Zealand. The UNITE union had been organizing workers in fast food chainssince 2005-06, using a skillful mix of traditional and new forms of campaigning in order to recruit andrepresent a high turnover workforce, which was overwhelmingly composed of young workers, including
many temporary migrants (Treen 2014). The union picked up problems of hours insecurity amongst theworkforce and took ‘secure hours’ as one of the central themes in its organising. Echoing similarcomplaints in other sectors, workers cited problems to do with irregular hours and schedules, short noticeof changes, lack of control over schedules, and insufficient hours (Treen 2015). They referred to the useof shift allocation by supervisors as a disciplinary mechanism, with loss of shifts following on if workers
called in sick or had an argument with the supervisor. One widely-resented feature of the work was theemployer practice of hiring large numbers of workers, who were given just a few hours of paid work per
week, generally well below what the individual workers needed and wanted. This ensured that employers
had an abundant supply of labour conveniently on hand to cover absences, unexpected fluctuations indemand and mistakes in scheduling. This was a form of organised underemployment, which served to
discipline workers and ensure that they offered ‘passive flexibility’ (Lehndorff and Voss-Dahm 2005).
From the worker point of view, the main problem in their actual hours was not zero hours but rather too
few hours. A UNITE official argues that ‘… overemploying and under rostering is the essence of thezero hours regime. It keeps workers willing to jump at offers of more hours’ (Treen 2015, 10).
Initially the union focused on obtaining clauses in collective agreements that required employers to offer
shifts to existing employees before hiring new staff, backed up by requirements to give notice before
hiring new staff (Treen 2014). But this regulatory solution proved difficult to enforce, and in the 2015
bargaining round the union moved to a new notion of ‘guaranteed minimum hours’, which would involve
both more hours and more security in the hours (Treen 2014, 23). To assist the campaign, it drew on
debates in the UK and framed the problem as one of ‘zero-hour contracts’, drawing attention to the written
contracts of fast food employees. The contracts were for ‘permanent’ rather than ‘temporary’employment, but they commonly contained clauses that required the employee to be widely available for
employer-led rostering, at irregular times and without any right of refusal, in accordance with the needsof the business. For example, one pre-2015 contract from fast food stated (NZCTU 2015, 7):xYour hours of work will be displayed on a roster. As the business may be open up to 365
days per year you may be rostered on any day of the year.

x

It is your responsibility to find out in advance the contents of the roster. You consent towork on the days and times rostered.

xYour remuneration [$14.75 per hour] recognises that you may be required to work
additional hours or outside of usual hours.

x

You acknowledge that flexibility is essential to providing staff to cover variable demands
and accordingly your times and days may be varied by the employer.

While requiring the worker to be available, the contracts made no mention of any employer commitment
to provide any hours of paid work. UNITE pointed out that such contracts clearly fitted a definition of‘zero-hour contracts’, familiar from press reports of debates in the UK.
The union campaign succeeded in mobilising many workers in fast food outlets and building up extensive
community and media support, and it eventually secured agreements that provided for guaranteed
minimum hours. The precise outcome varied, but a common element was a formula of guaranteeing tocurrent workers 80% of hours worked over the previous three months (with the calculation repeated every
three months). New employees would be given an initial guarantee that would be reviewed after working

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through a three-month block (Treen 2015, 10). This still left questions around the precise definition of‘guaranteed minimum hours’ (see below), but it constituted a significant step away from the previous
system of zero-hour contracts. It pushed back employer control over schedules and asserted at least anelement of employee control.
ii)

legislation

The union collective bargaining campaign achieved a good result for fast food workers, moving themaway from zero-hour contracts, but it left untouched the similar arrangements in other industries. The
campaign had aroused widespread public concern about the unfairness of all zero-hour contracts andpressure arose for action at national level.
Attention shifted to the national parliament, where the National Party, leading a minority government
supported by three smaller parties, announced that it would restrict abuse of zero-hour work arrangements
by means of amendments to existing employment legislation, contained in an omnibus Employment
Standards Legislation Bill. The government outlined proposals to deal with zero-hour contracts, as wellas other matters such as cancellation of shifts at short notice, restraint of trade provisions (exclusivity
clauses) and unreasonable deductions from wages. In addition it proposed a general ban on
unconscionable conduct. Many of the government’s proposals were welcomed, but the proposed response
to zero-hour contracts proved contentious. The government conceded that the zero-hour contract involved
an imbalance of risk, but instead of moving towards a principle of guaranteed minimum hours, asemphasised in the union campaign, it suggested that the imbalance could be remedied by requiring
employers who incorporated an availability clause in employment contracts to compensate employees fortheir agreement to be available. In effect it proposed an on-call allowance, which would cover not only
zero-hour contracts but also minimum-hour contracts that similarly included an availability clause. The
proposal for unspecified ‘compensation’ is described by one academic as an element of “largely cosmeticchanges which did not address the basic issue” (Nuttall 2016).
A chorus of public criticism, which swept up the other parties in parliament, suggested that the
government proposals failed to rectify the imbalance of risk between employer and employee and could
have the effect of entrenching zero-hour contracts (see eg NZCTU 2015). As it became clear that theminority National government would not be able to pass the legislation in this form, the Labour Party
offered support in return for amendments, and the government agreed to accept the amendments. The
amendments had the effect of requiring employment contracts with an availability clause to beaccompanied by a guarantee of minimum hours, although, in contrast to the formula in the fast foodcollective agreements, there was no clear specification of the level of the minimum. The legislation
preserved the requirement for an employer to pay compensation for the worker agreeing to be available
above the guaranteed minimum, but it added new requirements that the employer must have genuine
reasons based on reasonable grounds for including this kind of availability clause and that thecompensation must be ‘reasonable’. The legislation was passed unanimously and the relevant
amendments to the Employment Relations Act 2000 came into operation on 1 April 2016.
iii)

assessment

The two regulatory initiatives produced significant outcomes at the level of practice. The collective
bargaining agreements signed by UNITE led to substantial – though still contested (see below) – changes
in rostering practices in fast food. At first glance, the legislative amendments, applying to a broader groupof workers, appear even more consequential, and indeed several commentators interpreted them assignaling a complete ban on zero-hour contracts (eg. Roy 2016). Though this interpretation is incorrect(see below), the legislation did have a significant practical effect, prompting many employers who used
written contracts with an availability clause to review and amend the contracts, generally by ensuring thatthe contracts contained a provision for guaranteed minimum hours.21 It has been described as a “major
21 The other elements of the legislation are not considered here. The provisions concerning unreasonable deductions andexclusivity clauses are reasonably straightforward. The provisions aimed at regulating cancellation of shifts are potentially
important for on-call workers and address the working-time insecurity that is caused by cancellation either at very short notice38

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improvement in the position of precarious workers” (Nuttall 2016). Both regulatory initiatives can beseen to have reduced the number of zero-hour workers in New Zealand and to have pushed backprecariousness in employment for one part of the workforce.
The New Zealand experience is relevant to the earlier discussion of the political and policy challenge ofon-call work. Perhaps the strongest positive contribution of the New Zealand case is in relation to theprocess of change. The process, starting with a union campaign in one sector, stimulated an informed
discussion and succeeded in shining a spotlight on one form of casualised work arrangements, whichquickly lost legitimacy as its unfairness was exposed. As such the process was crucial to the outcomes,
which unfolded with surprisingly little overt opposition. Though equipped with new elements, thisprocess resembled those developed in earlier periods to combat casualised work; it incorporated union
mobilization and bargaining in one industry, media campaigns, community support, and activism within
a broad range of political parties. The New Zealand case suggests that collective bargaining and social
dialogue remain important channels of regulatory change. Even under difficult circumstances for labour
movements, traditional campaigning tools can still be effective.
It is true that several contingent elements also contributed to the success of the campaign. The union focus
on working-time issues was linked to the fact that there was little pressure for large hourly wage rises.
This could be partly attributed to the fact that minimum hourly wages had held up well, but perhaps more
important was the recognition that lifting earnings for zero-hour workers relied on securing more andregular working hours rather than higher hourly rates. At the same time, the union was adept andexperienced in its organising strategies. The campaign was able to rely on sympathetic voices in the media
to sustain its message. Moreover, the choice to use the term ‘zero-hour contract’ itself contributed tobuilding support. Further, as the campaign moved to the legislative level, it was able to draw on asentiment that the practices were not only unfair but also anomalous. Many observers felt that theexistence of zero-hour contracts within the framework of a permanent employment contract was at odds
with the principle of mutual obligation in case law and therefore needed to be tidied up.22 Also relevant
was the distinctive structure of government in New Zealand. On the one hand, the power of thegovernment of the day to effect reforms is relatively large because it is a unitary system with only one
chamber in the national parliament; on the other hand, this power is weakened by the Mixed-Member
Proportional voting system, which replaced traditional first-past-the-post voting after a referendum in
1993 and has had the effect of promoting coalition or minority governments. The lack of a parliamentary
majority for the National Party proved important. The government, which initially seemed to be aiming
at little more than an impression of action, eventually stumbled into legislation that was morecomprehensive because it lacked support from its supporting parties and because the omnibus bill was
subject to a pressing timetable (Nuttall 2016).
The political process leading to the regulatory initiatives was an unqualified success (though it was notsustained). But the content of the initiatives remains more open to question. At least two problems areapparent.
One problem concerns the mechanism of guaranteed minimum hours, which was offered as the solution
to zero-hour arrangements in both collective bargaining and legislation. The underlying principle isrelevant and apt, reflecting an assessment that zero-hour contracts were an unacceptable form of workand needed to be replaced by other work arrangements that offered better temporal standards for workers.
In both cases, however, the mechanism proposed revealed limitations. As it was defined in both
initiatives, the notion of guaranteed minimum hours lacked adequate detail on crucial aspects such as thelevel of the minimum, whether the minimum hours were integrated into a regular roster, whether thisminimum was adequate from the worker’s point of view, and who would determine the guaranteed

or indeed after workers have turned up for work. The provisions require a clause in the employment agreement specifying areasonable notice period for cancelation of shifts and reasonable compensation if the right notice is not given.
22 According to this argument, obligation was not mutual because it fell exclusively on the worker, not on the employer. As aresult, zero-hour contracts were identified as a strange hybrid, situated uneasily between a permanent employment relationship,
in which obligation is for both parties, and a casual employment relationship, in which there is (allegedly) no obligation on either
party (eg NZCTU 2013, 52).

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minimum (and future adjustments in the minimum). 23 In addition, the regulatory initiatives failed to
scrutinise what happens within the zone of availability that accompanies the minimum. How much noticeis there for a call-in? How short or long are individual shifts? Is there a maximum that goes with theminimum? Partly because of the perceived limitations of the simple mechanism of guaranteed minimum
hours, the union has indicated that it may move from guaranteed hours to guaranteed shifts in the nextcollective bargaining round (Treen 2017). Workers would be given a regular roster for the major part oftheir schedules and would only be available for on-call work for a limited period over and above theregular roster. If this were successful, workers would still be subject to an on-call component for a small
proportion of their actual hours, but they would be shifted out of the category of zero-hour and indeed
minimum-hour workers.
The New Zealand experience suggests that the substance of ‘guaranteed minimum hours’ needs to bedetailed. It also needs to be supplemented with other measures. The idea of minimum guaranteed hours
was usefully paired in the fast food agreements with periodic re-evaluation of the level of the minimum.
This picks up the principle of acquisition of additional rights and benefits with tenure, which is used inregulation of on-call contracts in the Netherlands. But other useful ideas such as minimum shift payments
and minimum notice periods appear to be missing from the New Zealand discussion. One central problem
concerns how to redress the imbalance of power that seems fundamental to much on-call work. This is
not so critical for workers in fast food, while they have access to collective representation through anactive trade union, but it is a pressing problem for other on-call workers. Without individual or collective
voice, workers are not able to claim or enforce employment rights, no matter how well designed.
The second problem concerns the reach and impact of the legislative amendments. Though widely
heralded as banning zero-hour contracts, the legislation was not as far-reaching and effective as might
appear at first glance. The amendments undoubtedly succeed in prohibiting some zero-hour work
arrangements, ie those which involve a written contract in which the worker formally agrees to beavailable to the employer without any guarantee of paid work. However:xxThey leave untouched other cases of zero-hour work arrangements which are not linked to aformal written agreement for the worker to be available. These other cases involve informal
understandings of worker availability (including informal understandings that the worker may
not receive any further offers if they refuse an employer’s offer of work, no matter how
unreasonable). Such informal agreements, common amongst casual employees, are just as
effective – perhaps even more effective – in generating on-call working-time patterns andpervasive insecurity. Because of the failure to tackle informal agreements the legislation cannot
be interpreted as a comprehensive ban on zero-hour work arrangements.
They successfully shift some permanent part-time employees away from zero-hour work
arrangements. But many of these workers have merely been pushed into a different version of an
on-call work arrangement, ie a minimum-hour arrangement. This brings permanent part-time
employees in New Zealand closer to the situation prevailing in Australia. Though the number ofzero-hour workers has been reduced, the overall number of on-call workers is unaffected. From
the worker point of view, the shift to a minimum-hour arrangement is likely to represent an
improvement in their situation, but they are still likely to suffer a range of negative impacts. At
the worst, workers now have an assurance that that they will be given at least a small number ofhours of paid work each week, but all their actual working hours may still be governed by on-

23 Some of these issues surfaced in a personal grievance case in the Employment Court, as yet unresolved, which challenged

the post-2015 agreements in the fast food chain McDonald’s. The McDonald’s agreements retained an availability clause but
introduced – following the lead of the collective agreement and the legislation – a provision for guaranteed minimum hours. The
latter are specified at what appears to be a reasonable level, but one central issue of dispute concerned the fact that the minimum
hours were not integrated into regular rosters; instead, they were subject to employer rostering decisions across the range ofhours and days specified in the worker’s availability agreement. As a result, all of the actual hours worked by McDonald’s
workers remained on-call hours. The notification of rosters came with reasonable notice (at least one week), and the shift lengths
were not overly short (a minimum of 3 hours), but workers were unable to refuse shifts and remained vulnerable to use of shift
allocation as a disciplinary device. Thus workers remained subject to many of the negative impacts associated with on-call work.

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call work arrangements. This might be of limited significance in mitigating the negative impactsof on-call practices.
These cautionary remarks suggest that the recent regulatory initiatives in New Zealand are best seen as a
useful first step rather than a comprehensive answer to the challenge posed by on-call work. Much
remains to be done in terms of refining and supplementing the notion of guaranteed minimum hours andin terms of developing measures to tackle the broader environment of precarious work arrangements.

Australia
Debates and regulatory initiatives in Australia in connection with insecure work have often started withforms of employment on the boundaries of employee status, such as ‘sham contracting’. The emergenceof the ‘gig economy’ has renewed concern with this area (Stewart and Stanford 2017). Triangular
relationships such as temporary agency work (labour hire) have also attracted attention, initially becauseof their use by host employers to bypass wages and conditions specified for direct-hire employees inunion collective agreements (Hall 2006). Recent concerns include the role of labour-hire firms inorganising temporary migrants for informal seasonal work in farms and food processing (Senate 2016;
Underhill and Rimmer 2016), where scandals involving poor treatment of temporary migrant workers inindustries such as horticulture, meat processing and cleaning have sparked renewed proposals to bring ina licensing arrangement for temporary work agencies (eg Forsyth 2016). Such proposals have been taken
up by state governments under Labor administration, and they may eventually result in a national
licensing scheme.
Insofar as regulatory initiatives have examined forms of waged work, they have usually concentrated on
the category of casual work. This is understandable given the significance of casual work in theemployment structure and the many negative impacts associated with it. Within this category, however,most initiatives have focused narrowly on long-term casuals on a regular roster – what are sometimes
called ‘permanent casuals’ (Owens 2001). This focus is justified primarily in terms of an argument that
this type of casual employment is where abuse or misuse of the category of casual employment is mostheavily concentrated. Casual employment is accepted as a valid employer choice to meet very short-term,
irregular work demands, but ‘permanent’ casual employment, generally defined in terms of the lengthy
tenure of the employee, is seen as a misuse of the category in order to avoid standard rights and benefits
for employees and to replace permanent or fixed-term workers (ACTU 2015, 2016). It is seen as an
unfair arrangement which allows firms to opt out of a wide range of standard obligations to theiremployees by applying a label of ‘casual’. In this perspective, long-term regular casual work both
disadvantages a large section of employees, who are in effect trapped in an inferior form of employment,
and poses wider risks to other employees and the society as a whole, eg by threatening the floor or safety
net of minimum labour standards (ACTU 2016, 42-43).
It is true that ‘permanent casual’ work, which is a category loosely related to the concept of regular casuals
used in this report, is a much larger phenomenon in Australia than in New Zealand, and it clearly deservescareful attention. However, a focus just on this type of casual work is unduly narrow and risks skewing
the debate and restricting consideration of appropriate regulatory solutions. It overshadows the substantial
problems experienced by on-call workers, which would include groups that are not normally counted as‘permanent casuals’, such as on-call casuals and minimum-hour on-call workers within the sphere ofpermanent part-time employment. It could be argued that on-call work is less of a problem in Australia
than in New Zealand because of the existence of selected working-time protections for casual employees
and permanent part-time employees (see Appendix A). These protections are relevant and do have aneffect in reducing some potential insecurities, but, as this report indicates, they are not sufficient toeliminate all insecurities associated with on-call work in Australia.
Australian efforts to develop regulatory initiatives around on-call and related forms of casual work rely
heavily on a somewhat narrow political process of change. As in New Zealand, the trade union federation,
the Australian Council of trade Unions (ACTU), has highlighted the issue of insecure work (see Howe etal. 2012; Rafferty and Yu 2010) and individual unions have pursued occasional initiatives around

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
precarious work at industry level (Campbell 2010; Kaine and Brigden 2015). However, in contrast to
New Zealand, and in contrast to Europe, no public campaign around insecure work has taken place inAustralia (Tweedie 2013, 300-301; see also Rawling 2015). Moreover, in contrast to New Zealand, thetrade unions appear reluctant to press for statutory regulation, preferring to pursue initiatives in theindustrial tribunals that could result in new clauses in awards. It could be argued that this approach has
been successful in the past, as indicated by the presence of working-time protections within awards. But
it is noteworthy that few advances have been made through this highly legalized process in recent years.
A major case in 2000 in the metal trades introduced a voluntary conversion right for some casual
employees (see Appendix A) and this right was subsequently extended to other awards (27 out of thecurrent 122 modern awards - ACTU 2015), but up until 2017 there were few signs of any further progress.
Insofar as there have been changes to award protections, they have often been to the disadvantage ofcasual employees. For example, the three-hour minimum engagement for casual (and permanent parttime) employees in the General Retail Industry Award 2010 was reduced in 2011 to one-and-a half hours
for casual secondary school students, largely justified by a belief that this would create more jobs for
disadvantaged secondary school students (Carnie 2012).
The most recent regulatory initiative in Australia occurred as part of the first four-year review of the Fair
Work Act and centred on a case brought by the ACTU and selected affiliated unions before a Full Benchof the Fair Work Commission (AM2014/196 and AM2014/197). The ACTU claim had three main
components:a) extending and strengthening the provision in awards for a conversion right for casuals;b) standardizing the minimum engagement period for casual and permanent part-time employees inawards at 4 hours; andc) a clause requiring employers: i) to provide information on classification level and rate of pay tocasuals; ii) to offer additional work to existing part-time or casual employees before putting on
new part-time or casual employees; and iii) to refrain from engaging and re-engaging casual
employees to avoid award obligations.24
The decision in the case was handed down in mid-2017 (FWC 2017). The third component of the ACTU
claim was rejected. The second component was also rejected, but the Commission agreed with theprinciple of minimum engagement periods for casual employees and suggested the introduction of a twohour minimum for casuals in the 34 modern awards that previously did not contain a minimum. The firstcomponent was partially granted. The Commission endorsed the need for a casual conversion mechanism
in order to avoid situations where the employer would be able without constraint to sidestep the safety
net of wages and conditions. It developed a model clause for conversion rights which would be
introduced into the 88 modern awards that previously did not contain a casual conversion provision.
However, it rejected union arguments in favour of strengthening the provisions in order to overcome thereluctance of individual casual employees to request conversion for fear of antagonizing their employer(FWC 2017).
As this brief account indicates, the ACTU claim fell squarely within the traditional approach, which
focuses on ‘permanent casuals’ and is oriented to convincing industrial tribunals about the need for new
regulation. Moreover, it was a strikingly modest claim, the main components of which were targeted on
already-existing protections in awards and contained no novel elements. The claim involved a major
investment of time and resources from the union movement, stretching over almost three years of hearingsand deliberations. Though the end-result might be seen as progress, it was strictly limited.
Varied efforts in Australia over the past twenty years to restrict precarious employment or to mitigate its
effects have had only limited success (Hunter 2006, 303). Several new ideas and new approaches havebeen proposed, but there is little sign of any social or political momentum to carry the proposals forward.
Interest has been expressed in pursuing ideas of portable entitlements for non-standard employees, along
the lines of the portable long-service leave provisions pioneered in the construction industry (Howe et al.



24 Several other claims, either by individual unions or by employer associations, were part of the case but are not considered
here.

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
2012; Markey et al. 2016; Thornthwaite and Markey 2014). But it is not clear that on-call casual workers
have a base of entitlements that could be carried from job to job. One critic of the conversion right argues
that a “more equitable... and more secure approach… is to ensure that every worker is entitled on a pro
rata basis to fundamental workplace rights, using reasonable probation thresholds to protect business’s
legitimate interests in securing the right worker for the job” (Owens 2006, 348). An academic report to
the Labor Party on policy options for casual work recommended approaching the deficits of casual workthrough new initiatives aimed at improving the conditions of all part-time employees, initially throughratification and then application of the principles of the ILO Part-Time Work Convention 1994 (no. 175)
(Pocock et al. 2004b). However, neither of the latter proposals have been further elaborated.
Apart from any substantive issues, a case can be made for a re-examination of the favoured process ofchange in Australia. The current process relies heavily on trade unions bringing a case before theindustrial tribunals and seeking a favourable judgment. The process has distinct advantages, eg inproviding a forum for detailed evidence and argument, but it places a large burden on a sometimes divided
and reluctant trade union movement, and, most important, it seems largely blocked as a channel forachieving substantial change in employment conditions for the many on-call and casual workers.
Tribunals have tended to agree that misuse of casual status is indeed a problem but have argued thatcasual employment is a long-standing feature of the employment landscape, which would be difficult toalter without major cost and disruption to employers. There is a strong case for supplementing initiatives
before the industrial tribunals with legislative proposals, backed up by public campaigns, as in the debate
around zero-hour contracts in New Zealand. Certainly, the development of the National Employment
Standards (NES) in the Fair Work Act as a legislated platform of minimum standards defines an obvious
space for debate and new initiatives. Though some scholars suggest that the legislative sphere is blocked
due to the dominance of neoliberal philosophy (Tweedie 2013), there are signs that any such blockage
may be shifting. For example, the Fair Work Amendment (Protecting Vulnerable Workers) Bill 2017,
which inter alia introduces new obligations on franchisors in respect of contraventions of employment
law by franchisees and strengthens the enforcement powers of the Fair Work Ombudsman, was recently
passed by the current parliament, with bipartisan support and supported by public opinion (Workplace
Express 2017a).

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7. Conclusion
Empirical evidence from labour force data and case-studies, though sparse, indicates that on-call (or ‘ondemand’) work is widespread in both New Zealand and Australia. It is characteristic of the work
experiences of a substantial minority of the workforce, especially part-time employees. On-call workingtime patterns are concentrated within the category of casual employment, which provides a conducive
legal and economic framework for the development of variable schedules to suit business needs, but they
can also be found in association with other types of employment, including even permanent (or ongoing)
employment. Zero-hour work arrangements are the most prominent form of on-call work in the twocountries, but also important are minimum-hour work arrangements, especially for a minority ofpermanent part-time employees. Though a lack of robust data makes cross-national comparisons difficult,it seems likely that on-call work is more prevalent in New Zealand and Australia than in many othercomparable industrialised countries.
The report stresses that on-all work in New Zealand and Australia is diverse, influenced not only by the
structure of the system of employment and social protection but also by factors such as employer choices,
industry pressures and labour market conditions. The diverse characteristics of on-call work underpin asimilar diversity in the extent and nature of the impacts on individual workers. However, in general, oncall work is characterised by a marked imbalance of risk, in which the worker is placed under anobligation to be ready for a call-in to work but the employer is free of any obligation to offer the hours of
paid work. Case studies in both countries suggest that many on-call workers are exposed to significant
elements of precariousness or labour insecurity in their working life, especially employment, earnings
and hours insecurities. These insecurities are likely to have the strongest impact on vulnerable workers
who lack individual or collective bargaining power, such as young workers and women with caring
responsibilities.
Explanations for the development of on-call work need to look carefully at employer labour-use practices
and the perceived advantages for firms in terms of flexibility. However, the report notes that on-callworking-time patterns – in spite of their immediate attraction for some employers – may entail
disadvantages for businesses in the short-term and the long-term. In addition, they are likely to involve
disadvantages for society such as depressed productivity growth and increased economic inequality.
On-call work is beginning to attract more attention in New Zealand and Australia, as in several otherindustrialised countries. New Zealand recently hosted a major debate on zero-hour contracts, which led
both to widespread condemnation of these contracts as unfair and to regulatory initiatives aimed at
introducing ‘guaranteed minimum hours’ and abolishing such contracts. Though only partially successful,
the regulatory initiatives in New Zealand – and the debate in which they were embedded – offer an
important contribution to the international discussion of on-call work patterns. New regulatory initiatives
are largely missing in Australia, but experiences with protective regulations that are lacking in New
Zealand, such as requirements for a regular roster for part-time permanent employees, standards forminimum shift engagements for both permanent and casual employees and rights for casual employees
to request conversion to permanent status, also make a useful contribution to the international discussion.
The report confirms the need for more research on on-call and related forms of casual work. In particular,
it points to the need for more detailed research on trends, characteristics, dynamics and effects in different
parts of the economy in order to better inform the emerging debate on policy measures to ameliorate thenegative effects of on-call work.

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

APPENDIX A: Legal understandings in
New Zealand and Australia
This appendix reviews selected aspects of employment law in New Zealand and Australia, focusing on
the relation between formal working-time regulation and the different forms of waged work. It aims tofacilitate an understanding of the way in which employment regulation in each country shapes thedevelopment of on-call patterns of work. This can in turn help in identifying regulatory initiatives thatmight be useful in lessening the negative impacts of on-call work.
It is useful to note that for most of the twentieth century both countries had a reputation for high wages
and comprehensive measures of social protection, anchored in a distinctive Antipodean system ofcompulsory conciliation and arbitration (Castles 1985). In this system, common law was supplemented
not only by statute and collective bargaining agreements but also by legally binding awards set down by
judicial tribunals (Anderson and Quinlan 2008). Both countries embarked on economic and financial
liberalization in the 1980s, but their paths subsequently diverged. New Zealand went on to abolish its
award system in the 1990s in the course of a sudden and radical experiment in labour market deregulation,
while Australia, after some hesitation and slow steps in the direction of labour market deregulation in the
1990s, followed by the radical ‘Work Choices’ experiment in 2005-2007, retained a modernized award
system that underpins a system of single-employer collective bargaining (Anderson and Quinlan, 2008;
Wailes 2011). Thus, while New Zealand moved towards greater emphasis on common law, Australia
retained a ‘complex and layered’ regulatory system that preserved the principles of award regulation(Anderson et al. 2011-12; Bray and Stewart 2013).
New Zealand
Working-time protection for all employees in New Zealand has always been relatively light, and it was
further weakened as a consequence of the introduction of the Employment Contracts Act (ECA) in 1991,
which abolished the award system, imposed restrictions on trade union action, and initiated a turn to asystem based on individual contracts, though with some space for a small component of collective
bargaining, generally at single-employer level (Anderson and Quinlan, 2008; Wailes 2011).25 A statutory
minimum wage (Minimum Wage Act 1983) together with statutory leave provisions such as three weeks’annual leave and five days’ sick leave were retained for all employees, but award provisions such as
penalty rates for overtime and work in non-standard times of the day were lost and were not subsequently
recuperated through collective agreements (or individual agreements) (Harbridge and Walsh 2002; seealso Anderson et al. 2011-12, 150-152). The subsequent evolution of regulatory policy has been
unsteady, partly shaped by the political complexion of successive governments, but the overall picture is
one of continuity. The Fifth Labour Government (1999-2008) improved the statutory minimum code byincreasing minimum wages, improving annual leave entitlements (now four weeks) and introducing apaid parental leave scheme, but its Employment Relations Act (ERA), which replaced the ECA, did notreverse the central thrust of the employment relations reforms. Although work-life balance and flexible
working arrangements became an important theme under this government, and family payments wereboosted, little was produced in relation to working-time protection apart from the introduction of a limited
individual right to request flexible work (Donnelly et al. 2012, 185-188). The subsequent National
government (2008-2017) introduced some minor measures of retrenchment, especially in relation totighter workfare measures, but the overall picture of continuity after the shocks of the 1980s and 1990s
remains largely unchanged. The level of the minimum wage has held up well. A recent assessment
suggests that social protection has not been abandoned over the period since the mid-1990s but neither
has it been refurbished; instead the best characterisation is one of ‘hollowing-out’ (Wilson et al. 2013).



25 Reductions in employment protection were accompanied by cuts in social welfare expenditure (though not the aged pension)and moves towards workfare reforms for the unemployed and recipients of other benefits (Wilson et al. 2013).

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 10245

The current working-time regime is best described as a ‘unilateral’ regime, in which the most importantlevel for the determination of working-time patterns is at the workplace (Eurofound 2016, 7-8). Key
working-time standards for most employees are set by individual employers, though there is a minorityof the workforce that is able to engage in (single-employer) collective bargaining.
The weakness of working-time regulation in New Zealand applies to ‘permanent’ or ongoing employees
as well as temporary employees. Most aspects of working time are left to agreement with the employer.
Except indirectly through health and safety regulation, there is no regulatory standard for usual full-timeworking hours, maximum daily and weekly hours, and overtime. This weakness in turn creates
opportunities for casualised working-time conditions to be reproduced within the framework of thepermanent contract. The situation of part-time permanent employees deserves special mention. Whereas
full-time employees are conventionally placed on a regular roster framed in terms of 40 hours per week,
part-time schedules can be markedly diverse in terms of the duration and position of the weekly working
hours and in terms of the stability of the roster, largely in conformity with employer preferences. Without
any special protections, such as requirements for equal treatment, as in EU countries, or the requirements
for minimum engagement periods and an agreed regular roster, as in Australia, part-time permanent
employees in New Zealand appear particularly vulnerable to risks of working-time insecurity associatedwith on-call work. Recent regulation has aimed to lessen such vulnerability, with some success (seeSection 7).
In OECD measures, New Zealand is characterized by a liberal and permissive approach to ‘non-regular
employment’ (OECD 2014). Fixed-term work has attracted some regulation in order to ensure that it is‘used for genuine reasons based on reasonable grounds” (Anderson and Hughes, 2014, *16-23).
Temporary agency work on the other hand remains largely unregulated, and the legal situation of
temporary agency workers remains blurred. They may be treated either as employees of the temporary
agency (generally fixed-term or casual employees) or as independent contractors (Burgess et al. 2005).
This points to the general lack of clarity around the boundary between employee and non-employee status,
which can result in employees being pushed into sham contracting arrangements in order to avoid costs
associated with employee status (Lamare et al. 2015).
Casual work is the major form of temporary work in New Zealand. The category of casual has a long
history, reaching back to the nineteenth century, and it often appears in legal documents, but its legal
definition remains imprecise. Both the definition and the practice has traditionally been narrower in New
Zealand compared to Australia. This can be traced back to the (now-abolished) award system, which
incorporated casual clauses, with definitions of casual workers, as distinct from permanent workers, thatwere framed in terms of short engagements (Campbell and Brosnan 2005, 5-6). This tighter and more
specific definition tended to be reproduced in collective agreements and in some legislation. In
developing case law, New Zealand courts have drawn heavily in recent years on UK doctrines of ‘mutual
obligation’ to represent casual work as an open-ended series of fixed-term engagements, in which theworker is engaged for a short time for a specific purpose, but in which no obligation on the part of either
employer or employee exists for the period in between the engagements (Anderson and Hughes 2014;
NZCTU 2013, 52-54; NZCTU 2015, 8-9). A pivotal 2009 judgment (Jinkinson v Oceana Gold (New
Zealand) Ltd.) stated thatthe distinction between casual employment and ongoing employment lies in the extent to which
the parties have mutual employment related obligations between periods of work. If thoseobligations only exist during periods of work, the employment will be regarded as casual. If there
are mutual obligations which continue between periods of work, there will be an ongoing
employment relationship. (cited in Anderson and Hughes 2014, *25)
Casual employees are entitled to payment for each hour worked. Casual loadings existed in the past asaward provisions, but these largely disappeared with the abolition of the award system. Though casual
employees enjoy few special protections, they are entitled to several statutory rights and benefits specified
for all employees. This extends beyond rights such as minimum wage, occupational health and safety
protection and workers’ compensation to include many forms of leave. Thus casual employees are46

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

entitled to paid annual leave and paid days off on public holidays, paid sick leave, bereavement leave andparental leave (unpaid and paid) (Campbell and Brosnan 2005, 10; MBIE 2015a, b).26
Employment regulation, whether weak or strong, can be undercut by employer non-compliance. A recent
MBIE report points to a high level of non-compliance with employment standards in New Zealand and“growing concerns that breaches are becoming more serious, systemic and widespread” (2015c, 8).27 It
suggests that there are three main problems: i) employees who are not given a written employment
agreement; ii) employees who are underpaid; and iii) employees who are denied their holiday entitlements(MBIE 2015c). The available evidence suggests that casual employees and other employees in low-wage
sectors such as horticulture and hospitality are the groups most vulnerable to employer non-compliance(Statistics New Zealand 2016; Stringer 2016; see also Searle et al. 2015).
Australia
As in the case of New Zealand, the working-time regime is best described as a unilateral regime, in which
the most important level for the determination of working-time patterns is at the workplace (Eurofound2016, 7-8). Nevertheless, in comparison with New Zealand, working-time protections for employees,
whether permanent or casual, appear somewhat stronger.
Though working-time protections for permanent employees in Australia are patchy in comparison with
European models, they remain more elevated than for permanent employees in New Zealand (Anderson
et al. 2011-12, 161-2). Such protections are found mainly in awards and agreements, and sometimes instatute. Though crucial working-time protections in awards were eroded during deregulation in the 1990s,
measures such as penalty payments for work outside standard hours are still in place within awards andagreements for most permanent, and indeed casual, employees (Charlesworth and Heron, 2012, 170).28
The period after the 1990s witnessed an unsteady development, characterized on the one hand by efforts
from employer groups to dismantle surviving protections in awards and to develop new provisions for
employer-oriented flexibility and on the other hand by the consolidation of a floor of minimum standards,
including a relatively high minimum wage, and by the introduction, generally under the banner of workfamily balance, of new employee-oriented measures such as a comprehensive paid parental leave scheme
and a right to request flexible work arrangements (Pocock et al. 2013). The Fair Work Act 2009 brought
together a rather bare set of minima known as the National Employment Standards (NES) (Stewart 2015,
116-119). Subsequent legislation in 2013 amended the Fair Work Act to widen eligibility for the right torequest flexible work and provided for the insertion in awards and agreements of a clause requiring
employers to consult employers about a change to their regular roster or ordinary working hours. The
latter provision may appear relevant to on-call work, but the reach of the provision has been limited, sothat the award clause does not apply where an employee has ‘irregular, sporadic or unpredictable working
hours’ (Stewart 2015, 235). Moreover, the content is weak, designed only to require the employer to: a)provide information about a change; b) invite employees to give their views about the impact of thechange; and then c) to consider any views given by employees (FWC 2013).
The situation of permanent part-time employees requires special attention. In the past, many awards failed
to make provision for permanent part-time employment, thereby pushing employees who wanted part-
26 Leave entitlements come with thresholds which would exclude some casual employees, eg paid parental leave, which requires
at least 10 hours per week employment for the prior 6 months. Moreover, in the case of annual leave, employers may pay fixedterm workers or workers who work intermittently and irregularly an extra 8% of gross earnings in lieu of providing the paid leave.
27 The precise extent of non-compliance is difficult to estimate. The MBIE report (2015c, 8) notes that ten percent of employers
in an employer survey, mainly small employers, reported that not all of their employees had an employment agreement. On theother hand, 8.6% of employees in December 2016 stated that they did not have a written employment agreement, and a further
2.8% stated that they didn’t know if they had a written employment agreement (Statistics New Zealand 2016).
28 In contrast to New Zealand, penalty rates for work in non-standard times are still a feature of employment in Australia for both
permanent and casual employees (though calculation of casual rates differs according to the award or enterprise agreement –Productivity Commission 2015, 1121-1125). Penalty rates for weekend work are a longstanding source of debate and argument(Productivity Commission 2015). In response to claims from employer groups, the FWC (AM2014/305) recently reduced penalty
rates for Sunday work for employees in retail and pharmacy and hospitality and fast food, to be phased in from 1 July 2017
(Workplace Express 2017b).

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

47

time jobs into casual status. This was slowly remedied, and in 1996 all federal awards were required toprovide for permanent part-time employment, defined as regular part-time work (Stewart 2015, 66-67).
The resulting provisions for part-time permanent employment in awards and agreements have generally
been developed along the same lines as casual work, ie through special clauses tacked onto the main textof the regulation. A common template starts with a definition of a regular part-time employee as an
employee who works less than 38 hours per week and has “reasonably predictable hours of work”(General Retail Industry Award 2010), and it generally goes on to specify that employees are entitled tothe same benefits as permanent full-time employees, though on a pro rata basis. Beyond this, it iscommon to have requirements for written agreement between employer and employee on a regular roster,
together with provisions that require written agreement for variations in schedules. The substance ofregular part-time clauses varies amongst the 122 modern awards, but they all provide in effect for aguarantee of hours, generally within the framework of a regular roster.
Permanent part-time employees also generally enjoy the special protection of a minimum shiftengagement when called in for work, in order to ensure that the time and money expense of transport towork, organization of child care, etc. are balanced by a reasonable period of paid work. Under the termsof this protection, workers are entitled to payment for the minimum engagement period, even if the shift
is cancelled or shortened after arrival at the workplace.29 Again, however, the level of the minimum canvary amongst the different awards.
These regulatory protections for permanent part-time employees are important and do have an effect.
They establish a clear difference between Australia and New Zealand in the situation of permanent parttime employees. In particular, award provisions for regular rosters impede the introduction of zero-hourwork arrangements within the sphere of permanent employment. Nevertheless, the regulatory protections
cited here are insufficient to establish ‘good quality’ part-time work; instead, they remain compatible
with ‘poor quality’ part-time work and inferior wages and working-time conditions in comparison withpermanent full-time employees.30 For example, though these working-time protections hinder zero-hourwork arrangements, they are compatible with ‘minimum-hour’ work arrangements, in which workers are
given a regular roster with very few hours and are available for ‘flexing up’ in hours (Charlesworth andHeron 2012, 170).
In OECD measures, Australia has an even more liberal and permissive approach to ‘non-regular
employment’ than New Zealand (OECD 2014). This is true not only for casual work but also for otherforms of non-permanent work. Fixed-term contracts are largely unregulated, except through rare clauses
in awards and agreements (Stewart 2015, 334). There is no specific regulation of TAW, and, as in New
Zealand, temporary agency workers can be either employees of the temporary agency (generally casual
but sometimes fixed-term) or independent contractors (Stewart 2015, 71-75). Similarly, ‘sham
contracting’ or dependent contracting, whereby firms of all types take advantage of the blurred boundary
between employee and self-employed in order to reduce labour costs (Johnstone et al. 2012; Stewart
2015, 49-64), is characterized as a ‘major weakness’ of the Australian system (Johnstone and Stewart
2015-16, 68).
The most important category of temporary work in Australia is that of ‘casual work’. Casual is a longestablished, though poorly defined, category in Australian labour law (O’Donnell, 2004). The category
is deeply embedded in awards, where – in contrast to New Zealand – it was given a broad interpretation,with casuals generally defined in casual clauses as employees who are ‘engaged as such’ or ‘paid as such’(Stewart 2015, 66). Casual clauses are found in almost all 122 modern awards and over nine in ten federal
collective agreements (DoE 2015, 8). Such casual clauses are relatively bare, serving primarily as an
officially sanctioned gap in employment protection, which allows employers to engage workers without

29 The provision does not resolve problems of short notice of changes, including cancellation of shifts, which are communicatedbefore the worker arrives at the workplace. Protection in this respect will depend on whether minimum notice periods of changes
to rosters are specified in the award (or agreement).
30 Australia has ratified the ILO Part-Time Work Convention 1994 (no. 175), though without using it as a platform for any
legislative action. Inaction is justified with an argument that the Convention allows exemptions for casual work, and that therefore
it is only relevant to permanent part-time work, which is held to be in conformity with the Convention.

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Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102
standard rights and entitlements. After the definition, the clauses generally state an hourly wage (with acasual loading) for each hour of work at the workplace, together with provisions for the time andfrequency of payment. Casuals may also be entitled to disamenity payments (‘penalty rates’) for overtime
and work during non-standard hours such as nights and weekends. Though bare, casual clauses in awards
may also add on regulatory controls and special protections. In the past, limitations were prominent, withcasuals not allowed in some sectors and subject to quantitative limits (e.g. maximum proportions ofcasuals) in other sectors. However, such limitations have largely vanished in the course of labour market
deregulation, with most quantitative limits in awards proscribed since 1996 (Campbell and Brosnan
2005). The casual loading, which specifies an increment on the hourly wage, remains in place. It was
intended both as a limitation (a disincentive for employers) and as compensation to casual employees forthe disadvantages of casual work; currently interpreted as compensation for missing NES entitlements
such as paid leave, it has been standardized at a level of 25%.
Two main working-time protections for casuals can be found in awards. First is a minimum shiftengagement. This is parallel to the provision that applies to permanent part-time employees, as describedabove, and it is often, though not always, defined within an award at the same level for both groups ofworkers. A recent decision of a Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission (FWC) left untouched the
majority of awards, where a minimum daily engagement period for casual employees was alreadyspecified, but it improved conditions for the remaining group of casual employees by introducing a newminimum of two hours into 34 modern awards that previously contained no minimum (FWC 2017).
The second regulatory protection, introduced in a minority of awards (and collective agreements) in thewake of a major industrial case in the metal trades in 2000, is a conversion right, whereby after a certain
period (generally six months) casual employees, other than irregular casual employees, have a right toelect to have their contract of employment converted to standard full-time or part-time employment.
Employers are required to give a casual employee notice of the conversion right at five month’s service,
but they have a right to refuse any request (though not unreasonably) (Charlesworth and Heron 2012,
177; Stewart 2015, 68-69). Until recently, the conversion right only appeared in a minority of awards.
However, a recent decision of the FWC has developed a model conversion provision for insertion into
the many modern awards without such a provision. In this case, the qualifying period is set at 12 months,
with an added criterion that the employee should have worked “a pattern of hours on an ongoing basis
which, without significant adjustment, could continue to be performed in accordance with the[permanent] full-time or part-time employment provisions of the relevant award”. In addition, the model
provision sets out the grounds on which an employer can refuse a request for conversion (FWC 2017).
Statutory protections for casual employees are limited, except for occupational health and safety (OH&S)
rules and rights to workers’ compensation in case of injury or illness caused by work, and freedom of
association and collective bargaining rights (O’Donnell 2004). Other entitlements are also limited(Productivity Commission 2015, 804). Casual employees have no rights to notice for termination or
redundancy pay. They appear as highly disposable workers, who are generally excluded from protection
against ‘unfair dismissal’ (termination that is harsh, unjust or unreasonable). However, they may be able
to bring a case for protection if they can demonstrate that they meet the minimum qualifying period (sixmonths or twelve months in enterprises with fewer than 15 employees) and that their employment was“regular and systematic and they had a reasonable expectation of continuing employment”. When paid
leave for non-work periods such as annual holidays was introduced, casual employees – following themodel of their exemption from sick leave payments and payment for public holidays – were explicitly
exempted from such entitlements. They continue to be excluded from most working-time standards andpaid leave today, as in the paid leave provisions in the NES (Charlesworth and Heron 2012). However,casuals who have been employed for at least 12 months on a ‘regular and systematic basis’ are eligible
to request flexible work arrangements. Moreover, they have certain entitlements under the NES to unpaid
leave. They may take unpaid carer’s leave, compassionate leave or community service leave, or
reasonably seek a day off on a public holiday. After meeting the threshold of 12 month’s service they
are entitled to the same amount of unpaid parental leave as permanent employees (Stewart 2015, 67;
Charlesworth and Heron 2012, 171-172). Under state and federal legislation, they may even have a claim
to paid long service leave.

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
As the above discussion indicates, casuals can in principle claim certain rights and entitlements after
regular work for a certain period of time (6 months or 12 months). The phrasing of the criteria forclaiming rights and entitlements varies, but commonly it refers to ‘regular and systematic’ work. The
tenure requirement is straightforward, but what constitutes ‘regular and systematic’ casual work incontrast to irregular and/ or unsystematic casual work is more opaque. The distinction is relevant to thisreport, but it is not clearly defined. The notion is subject to the development of case law. One workers’
compensation case suggests that ‘regular and systematic’ refers to the engagement rather than the patternof actual working hours (Yaraka Holdings Pty Ltd v Giljevic (2006)), and the logic of this judgment wasalso taken up by the FWC in a subsequent unfair dismissal case (Pang Enterprises Pty Ltd v Sawtell(2009)). If this interpretation of ‘regular and systematic’ holds, then it might apply not only to regularcasuals but also to many on-call casuals who could demonstrate continuity in their engagement. However,the significance of the decisions remains unclear.
Employer non-compliance may undermine the effectiveness of any employment regulation. The
enforcement regime, now administered through the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), has beenstrengthened in recent years. But employer non-compliance, described as “both significant andsustained” in the past (Maconachie and Goodwin 2010, 419-420), remains seen as “a major and ongoingchallenge” in the present (Howe et al. 2013, 10). In contrast to New Zealand, employer non-complianceis not associated with failure to provide a written contract, since the presence of a verbal rather than awritten contract of employment is not illegal. Employer non-compliance in Australia is primarily to dowith underpayment or non-payment of wages (extending to non-payment of leave entitlements, penalty
rates for work in non-standard times, and compulsory superannuation contributions). This can range fromdirect underpayment to more elaborate methods, such as varied forms of unpaid work experience orinternships (Oliver et al. 2016) or ‘phoenix operations’ in which the firm disappears while owing wages
to employees (but re-appears shortly after with a new title) (Anderson et al. 2015). Employer noncompliance is often associated with ‘cash-in-hand work’, which is concentrated amongst casual
employees who are employed in small firms in sectors such as food services (Campbell et al. 2016; Li2017).

50

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Acknowledgments
Thanks to Alex Heron and Jill Murray, who provided comments on an earlier draft.

Conditions of Work and Employment Series No. 102

51



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Conditions of Work and Employment Series
No. 1

Quality of working life: A review on changes in work organization, conditions of employment
and work-life arrangements (2003), by Howard Gospel

No. 2

Sexual harassment at work: A review of preventive measures (2005), by Deirdre McCann

No. 3

Statistics on working time arrangements based on time-use survey data (2003), by Andrew S.
Harvey, Jonathan Gershuny, Kimberly Fisher & Ather Akbari

No. 4

The definition, classification and measurement of working time arrangements (2003), byDavid Bell & Peter Elias

No. 5

Reconciling work and family: Issues and policies in Japan (2003), by Masahiro Abe, Chizuka
Hamamoto & Shigeto Tanaka

No. 6

Reconciling work and family: Issues and policies in the Republic of Korea (2004), by TaeHong Kim & Hye-Kyung Kim

No. 7

Domestic work, conditions of work and employment: A legal perspective (2003), by José
Maria Ramirez-Machado

No. 8

Reconciling work and family: Issues and policies in Brazil (2004), by Bila Sorj

No. 9

Employment conditions in an ageing world: Meeting the working time challenge (2004), by
Annie Jolivet & Sangheon Lee

No. 10Designing programmes to improve working and employment conditions in the informal
economy: A literature review (2004), by Dr. Richard D. Rinehart

No. 11

Working time in transition: The dual task of standardization and flexibilization in China(2005), by Xiangquan Zeng, Liang Lu & Sa’ad Umar Idris

No. 12Compressed working weeks (2006), by Philip Tucker

No. 13

Étude sur les temps de travail et l’organisation du travail: Le cas du Sénégal. Analyse
juridique et enquête auprès des entreprises (2006), by Alfred Inis Ndiaye

No. 14

Reconciling work and family: Issues and policies in Thailand (2006), by Kyoko KusakabeNo. 15

Conditions of work and employment for older workers in industrialized countries:
Understanding the issues (2006), by N.S. Ghosheh Jr., Sangheon Lee & Deirdre McCannNo. 16

Wage fixing in the informal economy: Evidence from Brazil, India, Indonesia and South
Africa (2006) by Catherine Saget

No. 18Reconciling work and family: Issues and policies in Trinidad and Tobago (2008), by Rhoda
Reddock & Yvonne Bobb-Smith

No. 19Minding the gaps: Non-regular employment and labour market segmentation in the Republicof Korea (2007) by Byung-Hee Lee & Sangheon Lee

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No. 20Age discrimination and older workers: Theory and legislation in comparative context (2008),
by Naj Ghosheh

No. 21

Labour market regulation: Motives, measures, effects (2009), by Giuseppe Bertola

No. 22

Reconciling work and family: Issues and policies in China (2009), by Liu Bohong, Zhang
Yongying & Li Yani

No. 23

Domestic work and domestic workers in Ghana: An overview of the legal regime and practice(2009), by Dzodzi Tsikata

No. 24

A comparison of public and private sector earnings in Jordan (2010), by Christopher
Dougherty

No. 25The German work-sharing scheme: An instrument for the crisis (2010), by Andreas
Crimmann, Frank Weissner & Lutz BellmannNo. 26

Extending the coverage of minimum wages in India: Simulations from household data (2010),
by Patrick Belser & Uma Rani

No. 27The legal regulation of working time in domestic work (2010), by Deirdre Mc Cann & Jill
MurrayNo. 28What do we know about low-wage work and low-wage workers (2011), by Damian
Grimshaw

No. 29Estimating a living wage: a methodological review (2011), by Richard Anker

No. 30Measuring the economic and social value of domestic work: conceptual and methodologicalframework (2011), by Debbie BudlenderNo. 31

Working Time, Health, and Safety: a Research Synthesis Paper (2012), by Philip Tucker &Simon Folkard

No. 32The influence of working time arrangements on work-life integration or ‘balance’: A reviewof the international evidence (2012), by Colette Fagan, Clare Lyonette, Mark Smith & Abril
Saldaña-Tejeda

No. 33The Effects of Working Time on Productivity and Firm Performance: a research synthesis
paper (2012), by Lonnie Golden

No. 34

Estudio sobre trabajo doméstico en Uruguay (2012), by Karina Batthyány

No. 35

Why have wage shares fallen? A panel analysis of the determinants of functional income
distribution (2012), by Engelbert Stockhammer

No. 36

Wage-led or Profit-led Supply: Wages, Productivity and Investment (2012), by Servaas Storm& C.W.M. Naastepad

No. 37

Financialisation and the requirements and potentials for wage-led recovery – a review
focussing on the G20 (2012), by Eckhard Hein & Matthias Mundt

No. 38Wage Protection Legislation in Africa (2012), by Naj Ghosheh

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No. 39

Income inequality as a cause of the Great Recession? A survey of current debates (2012), by
Simon Sturn & Till van TreeckNo. 40Is aggregate demand wage-led or profit-led? National and global effects (2012), by Özlem
Onaran & Giorgos Galanis

No. 41

Wage-led growth: Concept, theories and policies (2012), by Marc Lavoie & Engelbert
Stockhammer

No. 42The visible face of Women’s invisible labour: domestic workers in Turkey (2013), by SeyhanErdo÷du & Gülay Toksöz

No. 43In search of good quality part-time employment (2014), by Colette Fagan, Helen Norman,
Mark Smith & María C. González Menéndez

No. 44The use of working time-related crisis response measures during the Great Recession (2014),
by Angelika Kümmerling & Steffen Lehndorff

No. 45

Analysis of employment, real wage, and productivity trends in South Africa since 1994
(2014), by Martin Wittenberg

No. 46

Poverty, inequality and employment in Chile (2014), by Sarah Gammage, Tomás
Alburquerque & Gonzálo DuránNo. 47

Deregulating labour markets: How robust is the analysis of recent IMF working papers?
(2014), by Mariya Aleksynska

No. 48Growth with equity in Singapore: Challenges and prospects (2014), by Hui Weng Tat & Ruby
Toh

No. 49

Informality and employment quality in Argentina, Country case study on labour market
segmentation (2014), by Fabio Bertranou, Luis Casanova, Maribel Jiménez & Mónica
Jiménez

No. 50Comparing indicators of labour market regulations across databases: A post scriptum to theemploying workers debate (2014), by Mariya Aleksynska & Sandrine Cazes

No. 51The largest drop in income inequality in the European Union during the Great Recession:
Romania’s puzzling case (2014), by Ciprian Domnisoru

No. 52

Segmentation and informality in Vietnam: A survey of literature, Country case study onlabour market segmentation (2014), by Jean-Pierre Cling, Mireille Razafindrakoto & François
Roubaud

No. 53

A chronology of employment protection legislation in some selected European countries(2014), by Mariya Aleksynska & Alexandra Schmidt

No. 54

How tight is the link between wages and productivity? A survey of the literature (2014), by
Johannes Van Biesebroeck

No. 55

Job quality in segmented labour markets: The Israeli case, Country case study on labour
market segmentation (2014), by Shoshana Neuman

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No. 56The organization of working time and its effects in the health services sector: A comparative
analysis of Brazil, South Africa, and the Republic of Korea (2014), by Jon Messenger &Patricia Vidal

No. 57The motherhood pay gap: A review of the issues, theory and international evidence (2015), by
Damian Grimshaw & Jill Rubery

No. 58The long journey home: The contested exclusion and inclusion of domestic workers fromFederal wage and hour protections in the United States (2015), by Harmony Goldberg

No. 59The (missing) link between wages and productivity in the Philippines: what role for collective
bargaining and the new two-tier wage system? (2016), by Melisa R. Serrano

No. 60

Negociación colectiva, salarios y productividad: el caso uruguayo (2015), by Graziela
Mazzuchi, Juan Manuel Rodríguez y Eloísa González

No. 61

Non-standard work and workers: Organizational implications (2015), by Elizabeth George &Prithviraj Chattopadhyay

No. 62

What does the minimum wage do in developing countries? A review of studies andmethodologies (2015), by Dale Belman & Paul Wolfson

No. 63

The regulation of non-standard forms of employment in India, Indonesia and Viet Nam (2015),
by Ingrid Landau, Petra Mahy & Richard Mitchell

No. 64

The regulation of non-standard forms of employment in China, Japan and the Republic of Korea(2015), by Fang Lee Cooke & Ronald Brown

No. 65Re-regulating for inclusive labour markets (2015), by Jill Rubery

No. 66

Minimum wage setting practices in domestic work: An inter-state analysis (2015), by
Neetha N.

No. 67The effects of non-standard forms of employment on worker health and safety (2015), by
Michael Quinlan

No. 68Structural change and non-standard forms of employment in India (2016), by Ravi Srivastava

No. 69Non-standard forms of employment in some Asian countries: A study of wages and working
conditions of temporary workers (2016), by Huu-Chi Nguyen, Thanh Tam Nguyen-Huu & ThiThuy-Linh Le

No. 70Non-standard forms of employment in Uganda and Ghana (2016), by Christelle Dumas &Cédric Houdré

No. 71

The rise of the “just-in-time workforce”: On-demand work, crowdwork and labour protectionin the “gig-economy” (2016), by Valerio De Stefano

No. 72The introduction of a minimum wage for domestic workers in South Africa (2016), by Debbie
Budlender

No. 73

Productivity, wages and union in Japan (2016), by Takao Kato

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No. 74

Income security in the on-demand economy: Findings and policy lessons from a survey ofcrowdworkers (2016), by Janine Berg

No. 75

Non-Standard forms of employment in Latin America. Prevalence, characteristics and impacts
on wages (2016), by Roxana Maurizio

No. 76

Formas atípicas de empleo en América Latina: Incidencia, características e impactos en la
determinación salarial (2016), by Roxana Maurizio

No. 77

Firms’ demand for temporary labour in developing countries: Necessity or strategy? (2016), by
Mariya Aleksynska & Janine Berg

No. 78

Remembering rest periods in law (2016), by Naj Ghosheh

No. 79Initial effects of Constitutional Amendment 72 on domestic work in Brazil (2016), by theInstitute for Applied Economic Research (IPEA)

No. 80Coverage of employment protection legislation (EPL) (2016), by Mariya Aleksynska &Friederike Eberlein

No. 81

Emplois atypiques et résultats sur le marché du travail au Cameroun, en République
Démocratique du Congo et au Tchad (2016), by Benjamin Fomba Kamga, Vincent de Paul
Mboutchouang & Gaston Brice Nkoumou Ngoa

No. 82

Impacto de las reformas legislativas en el sector del empleo del hogar en España (2016), by
Magdalena Diaz Gorfinkel

No. 83

Redistributing value added towards labour in apparel supply chains: tackling low wages throughpurchasing practices (2016) by Doug Miller & Klaus Hohenegger

No. 84

Resultados de las reformas jurídicas relativas a las trabajadoras y los trabajadores domésticosen Uruguay (2016), by Alma Espino González

No. 85

Evaluating the effects of the structural labour market reforms on collective bargaining in Greece(2016), by Aristea Koukiadaki & Damian Grimshaw

No. 86

Purchasing practices and low wages in global supply chains Empirical cases from the garment
industry (2016), by Mark Starmanns

No. 87

Sectoral collective bargaining, productivity and competitiveness in South Africa’s clothingvalue chain: manufacturers between a rock and a hard place (2017), by Shane Godfrey, Trenton
Elsley & Michaelle Taal

No. 88Mapping Employment Dismissal Law: A Leximetric Investigation of EPL Stringency andRegulatory Style (2017), by Benoit Pierre Freyens & J.H. Verkerke

No. 89Social dialogue and economic performance – What matters for business, a review (2017), by
Damian Grimshaw, Aristea Koukiadaki and Isabel Tavora

No. 90The International Labour Organization and the Living Wage: A Historical Perspective (2017),
by Emmanuel Reynaud

No. 91

Managing Social Risks of Non-Standard Employment in Europe (2017), by Günther Schmid &Johannes Wagner

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No. 92Migrants and cities: Research on recruitment, employment, and working conditions of domestic
workers in China (2017), by Liu Minghui

No 93

Salario mínimo y empleo: evidencia empírica y relevancia para América Latina, (2017), by
Mario D. Velásquez Pinto

No 94

Organizing On-Demand: Representation, Voice, and Collective Bargaining in the Gig Economy(2017), by Hannah Johnston and Christopher Land-Kazlauskas

No 95

Conceptualizing the role of intermediaries in formalizing domestic work (2017), by Judy Fudge
and Claire Hobden

No 96

Collective bargaining in the textile and clothing sector in Uruguay (2018), by Graciela
Mazzuchi and Eloísa González

No 97

Multi-employer collective bargaining in South Africa (2018), by Shane Godfrey

No 98

Multi-employer collective bargaining in Jordan: the case of the garment industry (2018), by
Thoraya El-Rayyes

No 99

Unstable and On-Call Work Schedules in the United States and Canada (2018), by Elaine
McCrateNo 101 Zero-Hours Work in the United Kingdom (2018), by Abi Adams & Jeremias Prassl

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