When is a Casual not a Casual?

John Wilson
Legal Director

Accredited Specialist in
Employment and Industrial Law

Employers might be forgiven for thinking that a casual employee is simply an employee who is engaged as such under their relevant contract, especially when the employee is paid a loading in lieu of paid leave entitlements.

However these assumptions have been called into question in the recent single judge decision of the Federal Court in Williams v MacMahon Mining Services Pty Ltd.

The court found that even where an employee working on a regular basis contracts with their employer as a casual employee, the employer may be liable, at least under the (now repealed) Workplace Relations Act, to pay that employee accrued annual leave entitlements on termination.

What relevance, if any, this decision will have on casual employees engaged under the Fair Work Act is yet to be determined. In principle though, the ramifications are significant – particularly in the retail and hospitality sectors where the incidence of regular and continuous casuals is particularly high.

Read the full article in the latest Workplace Relations Newsletter.