Employer leaned on the casual contract. The timesheets told a very different story
A casual field technician who worked nearly every weekday for two years has won the right to pursue an unfair dismissal claim, after the Fair Work Commission looked past his contract and at his actual roster.
In a decision handed down in Adelaide on 13 May 2026, Commissioner Rogers dismissed a jurisdictional objection raised by National Workplace Safety Services Pty Ltd (NWSS), which had tried to shut down the unfair dismissal application of former employee Samuel Andriessen before it could even be heard.
The case, Mr Samuel Andriessen v National Workplace Safety Services Pty Ltd, turned on a question that quietly haunts a lot of Australian workplaces: when does a casual employee become regular enough to be protected from unfair dismissal?
Andriessen started as a casual field technician with NWSS on 4 October 2023. He was dismissed on 5 December 2025 and lodged his unfair dismissal application with the Commission on 23 December 2025. NWSS argued he should not even get through the door. Its position was straightforward: he was a casual with no fixed hours and no expectation of ongoing shifts, and so had not served the minimum employment period that unlocks unfair dismissal protections.
The timesheets told a different story.
Between January 2024 and his dismissal, Andriessen worked 99 of 101 Mondays, 100 of 101 Tuesdays, 98 of 101 Wednesdays, 97 of 101 Thursdays and 93 of 101 Fridays. From late October 2023 onwards, he was rostered for at least seven days a fortnight, Christmas periods aside. Most weeks he worked four or five days, averaging 67.18 hours a fortnight over the two-year stretch. The records came straight from the company's own payroll system, and their accuracy was not in dispute.
Work was allocated through an electronic calendar linked to each employee's work email, populated four to six weeks in advance. Andriessen could decline jobs, and clients sometimes cancelled them. Commissioner Rogers found that flexibility did not change the underlying picture: NWSS relied on him on a weekly basis throughout his employment.
NWSS leaned on the wording of the employment contract to argue there was no reasonable expectation of ongoing work. The Commissioner was unpersuaded, noting that the legal test looks at what the employee could reasonably expect during the employment, not just on day one. Taken together, the length of service, the frequency of shifts, the way jobs were allocated, the hours worked and Andriessen's ability to block out time when unavailable all pointed in the same direction.
The objection was dismissed. The unfair dismissal application will now proceed, with further directions to follow.
For HR teams, the takeaway is uncomfortable but familiar. A casual contract is a starting point, not a shield. Where rosters are predictable, hours are steady and the business plainly depends on the worker, the Commission will treat the relationship for what it is. Long-serving casuals — particularly those past the 12-month mark — deserve a fresh look before any decision to end the engagement.
