Lucy Nicolls is used to disappointment. She has been casually employed by the University of Sydney for eight years, despite repeatedly trying to get an ongoing contract.
So when the federal government’s casual employment changes came into effect last month, she wasn’t holding out hope for immediate change.
Nor did she expect that some Australian universities would respond to the legislation by halting casual hiring, firing employees or briefing managers on how to get around the industrial relations reforms and reducing courses.
“We’ve been made a lot of promises and none of them have come to fruition,” Nicolls says. “At this point casuals are demoralised – we’re consistently sold out.
“We want permanency, we want to be able to plan our lives, but instead we’re in a situation of constant precarity. It’s exhausting.”
The closing loopholes bill, which passed earlier this year, made a number of changes to casual employment, designed to make it easier for Australia’s 2.5 million casual workers to convert to a permanent role.
But experts are warning that the casual employment changes, which came into effect on 26 August, are having the opposite effect at universities, where up to 75% of academic staff are on insecure employment contracts.
Guardian Australia understands two universities – Monash and Macquarie – have curtailed hiring or let go of casuals, while the University of New England and the University of Sydney are advising management on how to prevent casuals from applying for ongoing work.
‘Systemic disrespect’ shown to casual workforce
Under the new legislation, employees are able to apply for conversion after six months of regular working arrangements, or 12 months if hired by a small business.
Employers can refuse requests for conversion on “fair and reasonable operational grounds”. They aren’t required to proactively offer workers to convert to a permanent role after 12 months of regular working arrangements.
But since the changes came into effect, there have been reports of universities considering removing semester offers for people who have been on the books for long periods, the Centre for Future Work’s senior researcher Dr Lisa Heap, says.
She says some universities are also giving casuals zero-hours contracts and suggesting that they may begin advising staff of any classes on a weekly basis to avoid creating an expectation of a “firm advanced commitment”, which would allow them to convert to an ongoing contract. Zero-hours contracts are allowed in Australia, however there has been a push in the UK to make them illegal.
Documents from the University of New England (UNE), seen by Guardian Australia, confirmed the university would offer casual staff work as usual, but in shifts of a maximum of eight weeks.
A spokesperson for the UNE said it was working to ensure the legislative changes didn’t affect “provision of services to students” while still ensuring it remained compliant.
“The university’s enterprise agreement contains a commitment to creation of new positions to assist transition of casual work to ongoing work.”
Heap says with up to 75% of academic staff on insecure employment contracts, there’s a “big incentive” for universities to try and get around the rules.
“They’re holding on to people but you may not get an offer, and there’s no guarantee of hours,” Heap says. “They’re getting around the legislation.”
“My concern is not the legislation itself but that the practices in higher education are so severe in terms of the quantity of people on insecure arrangements that there’s going to be a lot of attempts to try to continue the business model and not address systemic problems,” she says.
“There’s a need for a stronger hand to be had from the federal government to address this as part of requirements for funding – link funding with labour standards.
“If we don’t break down the universities’ reliance on a business model that is based on exploitation and promoting insecurity, they will take every twist and turn to avoid having to make fixed term and casual employees ongoing.”
In one example, a briefing session seen by Guardian Australia for managers at the University of Sydney given before the reforms came into effect, instructed staff to hide the end of contract dates from casuals and remove periods of engagement.
Nicolls was “outraged” by the briefing, which she sees as “another indication of systemic disrespect” shown to the casual workforce.
“They’re gaslighting casual academics about our own working conditions,” she says. “They say we can convert to ongoing employment but that’s not a reality for many of us.”
A spokesperson for the University of Sydney says it has been working to ensure compliance with existing and new obligations and held the briefing with managers to ensure they were “aware of the changes” to casual work.
“The presentation was delivered verbally and requires significant context,” they say.
“It was designed to make sure managers understand their obligations and responsibilities, particularly around supporting employees to exercise their employment rights.
“Casuals play an important role in the university. We have made no reductions in jobs or courses as a result of the Fair Work legislation.”
‘Manufacturing a crisis’
Concern over the impact of the changes comes amid warnings of up to 14,000 job losses in the university sector as a result of the federal government’s concurrent proposed international student caps.
This month, the University of Melbourne advised staff there would be a “pause on recruitment for vacant roles where possible”, with additional approval required for new appointments and contract extensions as a result of the reduction in foreign enrolments.
The National Tertiary Education Union’s Monash branch president, Dr Ben Eltham, says a team of more than 70 casual professional staff at his institution have already been disbanded and instructed they would be let go at the end of their contracts since the legislation was passed.
He says heads of departments are instructing teaching staff they would have either zero, or minimal, academic casuals to start in semester one next year, which is likely to have “major impacts” on workloads and class sizes.
“The university appears to have panicked,” he says. “Closing loopholes was never meant to be an excuse to lay off thousands of casuals across the sector.”
A Monash University spokesperson says there are no university-wide instructions to pause casual hiring.
“Monash has a demonstrated commitment to the creation of pathways to more secure fixed-term and continuing employment, where this is appropriate for the individual situation and work category,” they say.
“The university has worked hard to ensure significantly more employees have improved job security while balancing the need for casual employment where it is required and appropriate … these efforts will continue under the new Closing Loopholes Act and our job security commitments.”
At Macquarie University, casuals will only be appointed at the Faculty of Arts in limited circumstances from 2025 – with a business case required.
In an email seen by Guardian Australia sent in late August to colleagues, executive dean of arts, professor Chris Dixon, said the faculty would also consider cutting low enrolment units, substantially changing assessment practices and offering a maximum of eight units for majors.
“Undersubscribed tutorials [will] be closed and students [will be] offered alternatives at the end of week 1,” he wrote. “Reduced reliance on casual staff significantly reduces the cost of running the faculty by up to $8m.”
A spokesperson for Macquarie says the measures were being implemented to “more closely regulate the engagement of casual academic staff from 2025 and create opportunities for more secure forms of employment”.
“There are currently no changes to units, courses or majors,” they say.
General secretary of the NTEU, Damien Cahill, alleged that university employers are using the new legislative changes to “ratchet up already unmanageable workloads” and let go of casual staff.
Universities “are manufacturing a crisis,” he says.
Cahill says he has received widespread feedback across institutions, with many universities using similar messaging on casuals – suggesting they are acting according to similar advice.
“People are concerned, and they’re angry, and they’re outraged,” he says. “Workloads in universities are already at unmanageable levels, and this exacerbates that problem.
“The government needs to get serious about job security in the university sector but instead, the can keeps getting kicked down the road.”
• This article was amended on 22 September 2024 because an earlier version misnamed the University of New England.
