TRENDS: Bosses’ flexibility arguments a bit of a stretch

Jackie Woods says the bosses’ enthusiasm for casual workers is self interest at work.

Australia’s business lobby has donned its loose cotton pants and signed up for yoga. And like many fitness enthusiasts, they can’t stop talking about it. It’s flexibility, flexibility, flexibility.

Profits down, or just not high enough? Penalty rates getting on your nerves? Productivity sluggish? For big business, workplace ‘flexibility’ is the cure-all.

The employer-driven agenda to increase workplace flexibility has led to a rise in casual work arrangements in Australia, a sleeper issue catapulted into the headlines by the ACTU campaign on insecure work.

This has led to some extraordinary claims from business about the social benefits of casual work that follow a few predictable lines of argument.

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