October 1998 Volume 79 Number 10 "serving the protectors"
Casualisation of the Australian workforce – how will policing be affected?
By Angela Clare

Apart from the Australian Federal Police, where all officers and staff are on fixed-term contracts, “non-standard” employment in Australian police services is so far largely confined to contract appointments for commissioned officers. There is, however, an emerging trend towards non-standard, casualised employment across all sectors of the Australian workforce, including the public sector. This has potentially serious implications for policing. The erosion of public services, and the push for more entrepreneurial management of police organisations, all point to increasing “flexibility” - aka insecurity - in police employment.

The casualisation of the Australian workforce

The Australian workforce has been undergoing a marked process of “casualisation” over the past two decades. This process refers to the growth of a range of non-standard, less secure forms of employment - casual, temporary or contract - and a relative decline in the standard model of full-time, permanent work.

While available data on these employment forms is not comprehensive, it nonetheless reveals strong rates of growth. In 1982 casual work was 13.3% of the overall workforce, but by 1997 this figure had increased to 25.8%. Between 1982 and 1994, 85% of employment growth fell into the non-standard employment category. One recent study suggests that only 36.5% of the workforce currently works “standard” nine-to-five weekly hours. The ratio between standard and non-standard forms of employment was 66:34 in 1982, whereas it was 56:44 in 1994.

Casualisation is a cause for concern for a number of reasons. It is frequently associated with “precarious” employment, which is work that:

• Has little or no industrial protection or security.
• Has no entitlements to annual, long service, parental or sick leave.
• Is poorly paid.
• Has few training and development opportunities.

The risk of employment in other words is transferred to the employee, who can be sacked at the employer’s discretion without any of the usual costs of employment.

Australia has relatively high rates of casual employment when compared to other OECD countries, where it has remained a minor phenomenon. This can be linked to:

• Employer labour-use strategies: namely, the push for more flexibility in the labour force.
• Government labour deregulation and privatisation, externalisation and corporatisation of public services and bodies.
• Labour market over-supply (high unemployment forcing people to accept less desirable employment).

While unemployment remains an intransigent problem, the first two points can both be challenged. “Flexibility” in the workforce has become a buzzword of the ’90s, viewed by employers as well as government as the key to increased productivity. But it has too often been taken to mean numerical flexibility, that is, the right to hire and fire as demand dictates, rather than functional flexibility (a multi-skilled workforce) or flexible working hours with employment security. The short-term cost-cutting measure of reducing staff numbers to improve efficiency has tended to result in a neglect of training and development of the existing workforce and an expansion of unprotected employment, with long-term detrimental impacts on productivity levels.

The privatisation of many areas of public employment has been based on a similar free-market philosophy, supported by individualised industrial legislation. The push for flexibility on the part of governments has frequently meant insecurity for employees and the erosion of their working conditions. There is concerning evidence to suggest that governments in both Australia and New Zealand have used fixed-term contracts to avoid potential liability for redundancy compensation or unfair dismissal claims in public employment.

Developments in police employment

Policing is not immune from these changes. With increasing budgetary pressures, police organisations are looking for innovative ways to cut costs and increase efficiency. Added to these pressures are demands for reform in service delivery in response to changing social conditions: the shift from an industrial to an information-based society has significantly transformed employment, education, welfare policy and relative living conditions in Australia. While tenure has never been guaranteed, police employment has moved away from the model of life-appointed officers and towards the notion of police as employees, with shorter periods of service and more fluid conditions of appointment.

These developments have increased opportunities for non-standard employment in policing. Fixed-term contract and external work have already gained a foothold in many jurisdictions, with the transfer of commissioned officers to contract employment occurring in line with the more entrepreneurial approach to executive employment throughout the public service. The NSW police service has recently considered a proposal for the introduction of casual or temporary police work. A “civilianisation” of police organisations has been progressing for some time in response to increased demand for administrative competence and specialist skills, encouraging lateral entry from other organisations (particularly at the senior level) and the use of volunteers, aides and other external workers.

While these measures are designed to permit a more cost-effective use of resources, they have also produced some less-welcome consequences within police organisations. The introduction of fixed-term appointments has been purportedly based on the desire to improve employee motivation and job satisfaction, lift performance levels and fight corruption. But the experience of the Australian Federal Police suggests that contracts cannot fulfill these aims. The introduction of contracts has not only resulted in unsustainable financial costs, but has proved an ongoing source of anxiety for the officers concerned. AFP members now feel as though they are obliged to continually prove their performance, in contrast to the previous position of trust that employment is ongoing unless some breach of duty occurs. The disruptive effects of significant numbers of concurrent terminating appointments is also a serious problem.

Far from discouraging corruption, contract appointments may well have the opposite effect insofar as they undermine organisational commitment. The good record of SA police in this respect points to tenured positions as a far less costly and more effective measure as an anti-corruption strategy.

Other potentially serious issues arise from these trends in police employment. In the absence of specific protective regulations, rights of appeal to external bodies may be uncertain for officers on fixed-term contracts. On one possible outcome, if a contract is allowed to run its course and a renewal is refused (in the absence of justifiable grounds and contrary to employee expectations), an officer would have no access to protective legislation because there will have been no transgression of the contract itself, merely a failure to renew. Questions also arise about the level of protection afforded a continuing office-holder against interference with entitlements granted upon appointment.

Not all “non-standard” work is negative in its effects, however. Permanent part-time work has been comparatively recently accepted into police services, largely as a result of the need for more flexible working hours for those at certain stages in their career: officers with family or study commitments, older workers and so on. Offering security and development opportunities often lacking in casual or temporary employment, permanent part-time work represents (ideally, but not always in practice) an important alternative to full-time work. With increasing numbers of women in police services, particularly as they gain more experience and status, demand for more flexible, even temporary employment in policing is likely to rise.

There are, however, good reasons for not using contract, external or casual employment as a replacement for permanent employment, or as a substitute for effective performance management in policing. The benefits fixed-term employment are designed to effect in respect to corruption and performance can be better achieved by other means: reform of internal recruitment, promotion, decision-making, dismissal and disciplinary processes. The introduction of fixed-term contracts does not address the root cause of problems in these areas. It also risks introducing rigidities into management by limiting decision-making to the end of contract periods.

Not least, employment insecurity has been frequently identified as a factor that causes resistance to organisational change, rather than facilitating it. There are a number of advantages to be gained from a stable, permanent, skilled workforce: higher commitment levels, attraction and retention of quality staff, more effective service delivery. Good employee performance is not promoted by the fear and uncertainty generated by fixed-term contracts. Even where care is taken to consult, advise and compensate employees for their lack of tenure, the nature of fixed-term employment may nonetheless undermine police officers’ role as public servants and damage their relations with police management.

The trend towards privatisation of public employment and the individualisation of employment contracts gives police associations serious cause for concern. Once individual contracts are introduced, collective and centralised agreements, awards and arbitration systems are able to be bypassed, threatening on a long-term basis the industrial bargaining power of employees and their representative associations.