Does a casual position need to be advertised before it is filled?

[adambart84]

Hi, this is my first time posting as I have just came across this forum and I have quite a few issues with my employer so I may be on here a lot!

Anyway, to the matter at hand. I work for a company where we have 17 full time staff of which I am one, we also have now about 15 casual '0 hour contract' staff. However about the last 10 casual staff that have been brought in all have some kind of family or other personal link to somebody working here or to the manager. We have the managers son, the managers sons two mates, a supervisors daughter, somebodys wife and daughter, somebodys sond and daughter and a whole lot of friends and that... There have not been any positions advertised in about two years now, I have no problems with any of these new staff I just dont think its fair the way they have been selected ( no interviews or application forms) I know the rules for casual staff are different from full time positions but is this practice legal? There is also the issue that the full time staff now get very little overtime as we are now seriously overstaffed.

I appreciate any help or advise anybody in the know may have:-)

[Eloise01]

Re: Does a casual position need to be advertised before it is filled?

There is no law that dictates how an employer recruits ANY staff. There are some laws that say what they MUSTN'T do - so they must not refuse a job because someone is black, for example. But they don't have to advertise, they don't have to interview, they don't have to do anything specific. They can draw lots if they want!

Not having overtime is not a sign of being overstaffed. Not having any work to do is a sign of being overstaffed. And I would recommend not mentioning either. It is quite within the law to make employees redundant whilst retaining zero hours workers. From the employers point of view, such workers can be very useful. There are no costs attached to anything other than their actual working hours and accrued holidays, they are infinitely flexible because you only pay them for the hours you want them, they are not employees and so acrue no rights to claim unfair dismissal or redundancy pay... So be careful not to put ideas in your employers head.