Natural disasters and school closures: your rights and additional support from the PSA
The PSA has been advised of numerous school closures in areas that have flood warnings or are already flooded.
Don’t forget that, just like with the train network shut down last week, under the Awards covering our members in schools, an employee prevented from attending work at a normal location by a natural emergency can access Family and Community Services (FACS) Leave.
In the event that a school is shut down and becomes non-operational, there is no requirement to apply for any form of leave. You will continue to be paid as normal.
If your school remains operational but you are unable to travel to work, the PSA recommends you explore options such as working from home or working from an alternate location. If you are unable to do this you can take available Family and Community Service Leave (FACS) and/or Flex Leave, Recreation Leave, Extended Leave or Leave Without Pay to cover the period concerned.
If you are unable to vary your working hours, or are in a role in which you cannot work from home, you should seek to use your available FACS leave balance, or Flex Leave if available, in the first instance. FACS leave accumulates at 2.5 days per year for each of the first two years of employment, and one day per year thereafter.
These conditions are contained within your union-negotiated Award. If you are being pressured to submit any other form of leave when you have an available FACS Leave balance, please contact the PSA for assistance on 1300 772 679.
The PSA has also established a permanent Emergency Relief Fund. You can read more about it HERE.
Thank you to all the essential school staff and PSA members who are assisting our communities during yet another natural disaster, whether that be by continuing to support your school community, volunteering with the SES or RFS or working in evacuation centres.
Have you completed the workload survey yet?
We want to hear from all classifications of members in schools about how things are for you.
If you can spare just 10 minutes of your time to help your union support the membership, please fill in the survey.
We will be using the outcomes of the survey to inform our discussions with the Department of Education. The survey is completely confidential and no individual respondent will be identified.