Endnotes
1. These and other (tentative) conclusions on stabilisation and recovery are based on calculation of polynomial trend lines for the particular series, which has the effect of smoothing out variations attributable mainly to the business cycle.
2. A sample survey of employed full-time university students in the United Kingdom is reported in Lucas 1997.
3. The magnitude of change in male and female employment had been broadly similar in the United States and Australia.
4. By 'contemporaneous' changes, Borland means unanticipated changes in the variables that might have influenced retirement intentions. For a review of Australian studies of male participation rates see Norris and Wooden (EPAC, 1996a, 'Labour supply). The apparent reversal of the downward trend for men aged 50 to 64, mentioned by those authors, seems to have been temporary; stabilisation, perhaps. Recovery does appear to have been occurring for men aged 60 to 64.
5. 'In Australia between 1983 and 1987 there was an epidemic of upper limb regional pain which was concentrated… in occupations which involved either repetitive movement or… constrained postures… (e.g., process workers and keyboard operators). [It had been] observed among process operators in the late 1960s and early 1970s… ' (The introduction of word processing was itself a source of anxiety to staff trained and skilled as typists.)
6. Holders of franchises—'franchisees'—are normally classifiable as self-employed owner-managers. They pay the franchisor fees for assistance in setting up the business, an advertising levy and a percentage of turnover as royalties (information supplied by Franchise Association of Australia.)
7. For example, G. Rodgers, and J. Rodgers (eds) 1989, Precarious jobs, and Gray, J. in the Times Literary Supplement, 8 May 1998.
8. Not everybody accepted the United Bureau of Labor Statistics definitions. For example, one report reviewed in Rosenburg and Lapidus (1999), 'Contingent and non-standard work in the United States' added 'regular part- time work and all self-employment'.
9. Although Barnes et al.. (1999) in Productivity and the structure of employment, published by the Productivity Commission (the successor body to EPAC notes the high degree of overlap of the part-time and casual categories; its discussion treats them as though somehow contrasted.
10. Henry Bournes Higgins (1851-1929) was appointed to the High Court of Australia in 1906 and became president of the Conciliation and Arbitration Court in 1907.
11. Burgess and Strachan (1999) say more bluntly, 'Trade unions, largely by indifference or hostility to non-standard employment, allowed [it] to flourish and thus indirectly undermined standard employment conditions'.
12. When asked if he employed casuals, the manager of one of a chain of retail stores whose business fluctuated seasonally said it did, by approaching people who had worked for them previously when help was neededæthat is, the employment was casual1A. Asked about pay and conditions, he said there were no paid leave entitlements and pay was the hourly rate of the (full-time) award wage—but, 'between ourselves, it was in cash'.
13. Information supplied by Kate Boundy of Drake, who was responsible for placements in office work. In 1983 Macken, then on the bench of the New South Wales Industrial Commission, said that 'The concept of the temporary work agency has not been confronted by industrial tribunals [but is] one of the largest problems with which all of us will have to grapple.' (Macken 1984.)
14. Additional information supplied by NTEI Union.
15. The statement that 'The basic definition of a casual employee is to be found in the common law, where casual employees…are seen as employees who are used "as and when required", with each engagement being…a separate engagement' (Burgess & Campbell 1998, 'Casual employment in Australia… ') is of doubtful accuracy. The judicial registrar whose decision came under review in Reed and Blue Line Cruises had 'invited Counsel for the parties to refer to me decided cases on the question of what is casual employment and there are very few…of any assistance. [They] indicate that the term "casual employment" is a colloquial expression and that the Court is required to look in any particular case at what the arrangement was that the parties made between themselves.' (1996b, Reed and Blue Line Cruises.)
16. Figures from ABS Labour Force Supplementary Survey data, published as appendix to Romeyn 1992.
17. See also Murtough and Waite 2000b.
18. An article, 'The jobless and the unemployed', in the ABS Labour Force Bulletin (6203.0) for May 1997, says, 'Each month, the ABS asks persons who usually work part time whether they would like to work full time.' As confirmed on enquiry, that statement was incorrect. Respondents were asked if they would prefer longer hours and, separately, if they had been actively seeking full-time work.
19. Wooden (1998), examined statistics on job mobility and duration from 1975 to 1998 and concluded that, 'Despite widespread opinions to the contrary, job stability in Australia is not, on average, declining. Indeed, for women the reverse is true, with many more women employed in long-term jobs today than two decades earlier'. However, insecurity could have increased in the sense that new jobs had become harder to find. Norris (1993), had reported similar conclusions.
20. A 'job' is employment held for at least two weeks.
21. Information supplied by Drake Personnel and National Association of Personnel Consultants. Discrepancies with ABS figures on methods of job-finding could be caused by respondents' reporting themselves, technically correctly, as having 'had no prior knowledge that [a] job was available [and] contacted likely employers', where likely employers included private agencies.
22. Information kindly supplied by Sam Beechie, Australian Workers' Union.
23. Smith recognised that market transactions involved services as well as goods, but proposed no general category of self-employment to include provision of both. Essentially, goods could be resold but services could not: The labor of some of the most respectable orders in the society is…unproductive of any value, and does not fix or realise itself in any permanent subject, or vendible commodity… The labor of…the sovereign…servants of the public…churchmen, lawyers, physicians, men of letters of all kinds [as well as] players, buffoons, musicians, opera singers, opera dancers, &c …has a certain value, regulated by the very same principles [as] every other sort of labor [but] produces nothing which could afterwards purchase or procure an equal quantity of labor… The work of all of them perishes in the very instant of its production. (Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Bk II, Ch III)
24. That is, has a base of his own, although his productive activity is not necessarily confined to it.
25. For further discussion see Romeyn (1992), especially pp. 27-39. Creighton (1993) goes on to list the legislative expedients of simply using the words and 'leaving it to the courts to resolve the matter as best they can', adopting circular definitions and 'again passing the matter back to the courts and the common law', arbitrarily deeming 'certain groups of workers to be "employees"' and, on the contrary, defining 'employee' in terms that 'exclude workers who would otherwise be included'.
26. 'When respondents…indicate that they are an employer, they are asked if their business is a limited liability company. If they respond in the affirmative…employment status is recoded to wage and salary earner. According to theABS, 39 per cent of those who reported employer status in the May 1994 Labour Force Survey were recoded to wage and salary earner status for this reason' (VandenHeuvel & Wooden 1995).
27. For background information on the survey of employment and earnings, and expected differences between that and the labor force survey, ABS information papers New statistical series: Employment, average weekly earnings, job vacancies and overtime, 6256.0, June 1984, and Comparison of employment estimates from the labour force survey and the survey of employment and earnings, 6263.0, July 1985.
28. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the legal term 'bailment' refers to 'handing over…for a specific purpose… [D]elivery in trust, upon a contract expressed or implied'.
29. In Stevens v Brodribb the High Court seems to have regarded the 'organisation test' precedents as incoherent if not vacuous, and one stimulus for the British Workmen's Compensation Act 1897, the prototype for Australian legislation was that the common law had come to hold employers of injured workers liable for damages only if direct and personal negligence could be proved, and the claim was untainted by contributory negligence, and even that entry into an occupation implied acceptance of any risks inherent in the particular work, and that wages paid could be assumed to include an element of compensation for such risks. (Hanes 1968, The First British Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897)
30. At least, inclusion of workers provided by contract firms seems to have been intended: Contractors (and their employees)…worked on a contract-for-service basis at the workplace. Contractors are usually engaged for a specific task such as a construction job, the introduction of a new computer system or the cleaning of an office building. (Morehead et al. 1997, p. 46.)
31. Further information from State Public Services Federation and departments of Human Services and State Development.
32. 'The "business services industry" comprises advertising, credit reporting and collection, mailing, reproduction and stenography, services to buildings, personnel supply services, computer and data processing services, and miscellaneous business services' (Abraham & Taylor 1996). In the 21-year period, employment in that group had grown by 288 per cent, and total employment in the United States' non-farm sector by 50 per cent.
33. Information supplied by ABS is that employed respondents to the LFS are asked to name the industry they work in, and for the name and address of the employer, which is then checked if possible with the register mentioned above.