I am a permanent resident living and working in Australia. I think I've been severely mistreated as I know very little about the inner workings of the Australian work and employment law. I've worked on and off for 4 years as a casual for this small to midsize company. I was put on permanent part time about a year ago, went back to the states to get married to my partner in May.
We came back in July and I received a voicemail from my employer that work was slow and once things picked up again they would give me a call. A month goes by and I haven't heard a word. At this time, I still was under the impression that I was employed. I called them to find out the status of the work and they said to come in a few days. This was two weeks ago.
Now at this point I have been looking for full time employment online and found an ad for the company I work for. Thinking to myself, can't give me work but have enough on to hire new people, righty-o. So I go into work and there is now two new people in the office and one new person on the floor (similar tasks to my employment) that's been there 6 weeks prior to me coming back in.
I work the few days they have given me and receive my pay slip which has none of the entitlements I was getting prior to holidays. I give it another week, this time I've got a full week's work in and still no entitlements. At this point I emailed the account manager to see if this was an error and this is the response to me.
"Hi Johnny 5, just had a chat to the boss and he advised that he called you while you were in the US to advise that there was no work at the present time and that unfortunately he could not offer you any work when you got back from holidays. He did mention that if we were successful with the Commonwealth Games job that he would get in touch to chat about possible future employment. As we did not win the job, he was unable to offer you any work and your employee file was closed.
When you contacted him a short while ago asking for some work he advised that he had a couple of days available and this last week he was able to give you a full week. However this is not guaranteed work and employer needs to be able to employ when the work is there and let go when the work is not – hence the casual employment basis.
When re-employing you, I spoke to employer about the pay rate and advised him that the casual Engineering/manufacturing tradesperson Level II rate was $X7.45 but he insisted that you be paid your previous above award rate of $X9.33.
So very sorry if communication was not sufficient to inform you of the current conditions."
Shorty after this email response, I received a text message from my employer, "there isn't much work on and my services will no longer be needed". I have never received anything that said I was not being employed after the holiday, it's stated in the email about "re-employing" as if I had been let go and then rehired. As it's pointed out on the last paragraph there was a lack of clear communication when I returned from holidays.
So many questions... Is any of this even legal, do I have a leg to stand on? Where do I go from here? Seems as though they put me back on casual in order for them to not have to pay out for redundancy.
- Can a voicemail stating "there isn't much work on, don't come in" hold up legally for downgrading me from ppt to casual if it wasn't specifically stated?
- Wouldn't I have priority to become a full timer after a year of being on ppt, 3 years as a casual?
- Is anything over 8 hours work in a day as a casual employee meant to be overtime pay? I was told that it went by 38 hours in a week once the new accounts manager was hired, prior to that I was getting paid for overtime per day for anything over 8 hours.
We came back in July and I received a voicemail from my employer that work was slow and once things picked up again they would give me a call. A month goes by and I haven't heard a word. At this time, I still was under the impression that I was employed. I called them to find out the status of the work and they said to come in a few days. This was two weeks ago.
Now at this point I have been looking for full time employment online and found an ad for the company I work for. Thinking to myself, can't give me work but have enough on to hire new people, righty-o. So I go into work and there is now two new people in the office and one new person on the floor (similar tasks to my employment) that's been there 6 weeks prior to me coming back in.
I work the few days they have given me and receive my pay slip which has none of the entitlements I was getting prior to holidays. I give it another week, this time I've got a full week's work in and still no entitlements. At this point I emailed the account manager to see if this was an error and this is the response to me.
"Hi Johnny 5, just had a chat to the boss and he advised that he called you while you were in the US to advise that there was no work at the present time and that unfortunately he could not offer you any work when you got back from holidays. He did mention that if we were successful with the Commonwealth Games job that he would get in touch to chat about possible future employment. As we did not win the job, he was unable to offer you any work and your employee file was closed.
When you contacted him a short while ago asking for some work he advised that he had a couple of days available and this last week he was able to give you a full week. However this is not guaranteed work and employer needs to be able to employ when the work is there and let go when the work is not – hence the casual employment basis.
When re-employing you, I spoke to employer about the pay rate and advised him that the casual Engineering/manufacturing tradesperson Level II rate was $X7.45 but he insisted that you be paid your previous above award rate of $X9.33.
So very sorry if communication was not sufficient to inform you of the current conditions."
Shorty after this email response, I received a text message from my employer, "there isn't much work on and my services will no longer be needed". I have never received anything that said I was not being employed after the holiday, it's stated in the email about "re-employing" as if I had been let go and then rehired. As it's pointed out on the last paragraph there was a lack of clear communication when I returned from holidays.
So many questions... Is any of this even legal, do I have a leg to stand on? Where do I go from here? Seems as though they put me back on casual in order for them to not have to pay out for redundancy.
- Can a voicemail stating "there isn't much work on, don't come in" hold up legally for downgrading me from ppt to casual if it wasn't specifically stated?
- Wouldn't I have priority to become a full timer after a year of being on ppt, 3 years as a casual?
- Is anything over 8 hours work in a day as a casual employee meant to be overtime pay? I was told that it went by 38 hours in a week once the new accounts manager was hired, prior to that I was getting paid for overtime per day for anything over 8 hours.
