Social Legitimacy of Employers

Social Legitimacy of Employers 1
Social Legitimacy of Employees
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Social Legitimacy of Employers 2
The use of casual workers by employers for more than six months without offering them
permanent position is under threat. Furthermore, employer associations reject the idea of offering
casual laborers permanent status because it would affect their flexibility and increase their
bargaining power. Even though employers benefit from flexibility with which they employ
casual laborers, casual workers need to be given the opportunity to decide whether they would
want permanent position. This paper will discuss social legitimacy of employers by focusing on
two employer association to justify that it is socially acceptable to offer casual workers
employment on permanent basis. Among the points that are discussed in favor of casual workers
include permanent employment offers more benefits and rights under well-regulated system,
procurement process need to be modified, offer job security, regulations and reduce
unemployment rate. However, the paper will first define social legitimacy and flexibility to offer
insight on how employer’s position differs from that of the union.
Social legitimacy is a concept that suggests that lack of societal acceptance often leads to
the disintegration of institutions. This concept shares similarities with liberalism in terms of
internal market. Furthermore, the concept suggests that shared benefits of a joint venture to free
trade are attainable in an environment characterized by objectives of the society. It, therefore,
implies that employee unions must prove that the need to employ casual laborers is a social
acceptable issue (van Oorschot, Roosma, Meuleman and Reeskens 2017).
Flexibility generally refers to a number of various ideas in relation to time. In essence,
flexibility refers to an institutions ability to respond to changes in its environment. Strategic
flexibility is often pegged on liquidity and the capability of responding in a much faster way.
Similarly, flexibility depends on an organizational structure in terms of collaboration of tasks and
decision-making process.

Social Legitimacy of Employers 3
In relation to Boxall and Purcell theory, high-performance work practices contribute to an
organization performance through skills and recognition of seniority, incentives and
opportunities to participate (Boxall and Purcell 2016) The purpose of this theory is to understand
why managers do what they do and why they do it. Social legitimacy tends to explain how the
performance of an organization is based upon the characteristics of its employees (Productivity
Commission 2015). To elaborate more, there are three pillars that govern the concept of social
legitimacy among institutions. These principles include regulation, normative and cultural-
cognitive (Bornstein 2019).
Although the employers’ use of casual employment of duration of more than six months
is under threat, perhaps it is significant to understand the circumstances of a casual worker in
order to dwell on why employers’ are opposing the idea. Employers cite concerns of flexibility
as their primary reason although it can be attributed to limiting casual labor bargaining power.
The Fair Work Act stipulates that casual employee does not count towards the minimum
employment period unless they are employed on a regular and systematic basis and there is a
reasonable expectation of ongoing employment (Fair Work Ombudsman 2019).
A casual employee, on the other hand, is defined as an individual who does not have a
commitment in advance from an employer concerning their employee status. Hence, a casual
employee does not commit to all the tasks assigned by the employer. Among other
characteristics of casual employees include lack of guaranteed working hours, irregular hours, no
benefits, no sick and annual leave and there are no notices for dismissal (Unfair dismissals
benchbook 2019).
Casual workers should be offered the opportunity to change to permanent status because
there are more benefits to be gained by a causal worker under permanent employment.