‘Better for the entire country’: epidemiologists join growing calls to pay sick leave to casuals

When the Albanese government unveiled its new domestic violence leave scheme this week, casual employees were front of mind.

"The principle is if someone is wanting to get out, we don't want 'do you lose your job' or 'are you going to lose money' to be on the list of difficulties that that individual is facing," the workplace relations minister, Tony Burke, told ABC radio on Tuesday.

"The reality is, disproportionately, people in casual work are in those situations. If you're facing family and domestic violence, you are more likely to be in insecure work."

Casual employees have also benefited recently from the extension of pandemic leave payments for time off while isolating with Covid.

But casuals suffer other illnesses, too, and there are growing calls from epidemiologists, unions and the Victorian Labor government for sick leave to be extended to casual employees.

"No one should have to choose between their health and a day's pay," Victoria's minister for employment, Jaala Pulford, said when unveiling early results of the state's national-first trial of sick leave for casuals on Friday.

The state government has so far paid out $6m among the more than 30,000 workers who have signed up to its pilot scheme over the past four months. The scheme applies to specific industries including hospitality, supermarkets and retail, and gives casual workers five days of paid sick or carer's leave at the minimum wage of $21.38 an hour. The trial is being funded by government, although Victoria's premier, Daniel Andrews, has previously said any ongoing scheme would be funded by a levy on business.

For Prof Adrian Esterman, an epidemiologist at the University of South Australia, a permanent sick pay scheme for casuals is a "good investment", particularly for infectious diseases.

"The more people who stay at home when they are unwell, the better it is for the entire country - particularly when it's an infectious disease," he says.

"It will cost employers even more when other people catch whatever they [the sick worker] have and the rest of the staff get infected."

Alexandra Martiniuk, a professor of epidemiology with the University of Sydney, agrees permanent paid sick leave would be a "smart move" to reduce the spread of influenza and common colds, particularly with Australia's overburdened hospital sector.

"There's also some research that shows that it also reduces workers' stress levels and so paid sick leave can help somebody get, potentially, healthier sooner and back to work and can reduce the cycle of people going to work sick, getting the other staff sick and therefore the downward spiral of not having enough staff," Martiniuk says.

The United Workers Union's executive director for clubs and casinos, Dario Mujkic, says the Albanese government's domestic and family violence leave bill has "shifted the concept that casuals are workers who never get paid leave".

"If we can extend that into sick pay we can make it a universal entitlement," he says.

"The reason that insecure work exists is because employers have shifted risk onto workers. And so actually we need employers to step up and take up the very, very small cost of providing better workplace arrangements for people who are sick."

Business, however, sees the issue differently.

Paul Guerra, the Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive, says casual workers already receive additional loading in their hourly wage to cover paid leave.

"This scheme is an unnecessary additional burden on businesses that are still recovering following two and a half years of uncertainty. We recognise there is a place during a pandemic for extra support but we don't believe that additional conditions for casuals will be required," he says.

"The Victorian chamber would strongly oppose any levy, should the government consider extending beyond the two-year pilot."

There are other ways to prevent the spread of diseases at work, too. Prof Mike Toole, a Burnet Institute epidemiologist, says offering compensation for infectious diseases such as influenza to all casual workers could "open Pandora's box". He suggests, instead, a nationwide campaign to encourage workers to wear N95 masks at work to prevent influenza, common colds and Covid.

"The message should be if you can, stay home, and if you do have to go to work, wear a mask. That's what people in countries like Japan have been doing for decades," he says.

Delivering "secure, well-paid jobs" is one of the core objectives of the federal government's jobs and skills summit scheduled for September.

Speaking on ABC's Insiders last week, Burke declined to expand on the issue of more entitlements for casual workers, saying instead that job security should be an objective of the Fair Work Act, alongside flexibility.

"I'm much more interested in how we can promote secure work and get more people into secure jobs than just redefining everything about casual employment," he said.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions has long campaigned for sick leave for casual workers, but agrees tackling the cause of the problem - insecure work - is the priority.

"Most so-called casual workers are working regular hours with the same employer, day in, day out. Nearly one million 'casual' workers are effectively working permanent full-time hours. These workers should have the right to be permanent with paid leave including sick leave provisions," the ACTU president, Michele O'Neil, says.

As Victoria inches towards a state election in November, the Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary, Luke Hilakari, has vowed to make the Coalition's opposition to the scheme an election issue.

Hilakari says the union body would like the trial's scope to be expanded and for it to be permanent but otherwise the scheme is "great".

"You get to be sick and still be able to pay the bills, like every other worker," he says.