Unions have blasted laws offering long-term casual workers the chance to apply for permanent roles as useless.
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One of the only surviving measures from the Morrison government's industrial relations bill passed in March allowed casual employees more rights to ask employers for conversion.
Under the changes, casuals employed for one year who had six months of regular work patterns with the same employer could request conversion to part-time or full-time jobs.
Employers were required to assess workers' eligibility for conversion by September 27.
Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus said the laws allowed employers complete discretion to deny requests.
"Two weeks ago, TAFE NSW let all its 7700 eligible casual staff know that they weren't getting permanent work. Not a single person," she said in a speech on Friday.
"As the AEU (Australian Education Union) have said, these teachers do exactly the same job as their permanent colleagues. Many have done so for years and years. This is a disgrace. These laws are useless."
Ms McManus told the Australian Labour and Employment Relations Association conference there were similar examples all over the country.
"When workers do not have reliable incomes, they cannot be reliable spenders," she said.
"The country will need consumer spending to recover from lockdowns. Instead, we will have a record number of people in insecure work.
"How is this sustainable? Who is this sustaining?"
The ACTU secretary also warned the decline in enterprise bargaining was suppressing wage growth and hurting the economy.
"If we accept that bargaining should occur between equal partners, then laws that suppress unions and workers organising need to be reformed," Ms McManus said.
"The unnecessary red tape which frustrates both unions and employers needs to be removed."
She said the pandemic discriminated against frontline workers including people in health, truck drivers, food delivery, public transport, and aged and disability care.
"This terrible disease has targeted people based on where they lived, what job they have, and - most worryingly - how secure their jobs are."
Australian Associated Press
