The PSA recently notified the NSW Department of Education (DoE) that we’ve lodged a dispute in the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC), seeking relief for members who are being denied payment of the Crown Conditions Award cl 29 lunch meal allowance.
The PSA has advised DoE Industrial Relations that the department’s communications to staff on their intranet travel pages and in messaging from Directors to Work Health and Safety (WHS), Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Training Services and other staff areas that they cannot claim a lunchtime meal allowance for one-day journeys when the travel is part of their role; together with refusal to pay these claims, represents a breach of Crown Employees (Public Service Conditions of Employment) reviewed Award 2009 (“ the Crown Conditions Award” ) – Clause 29.1.3 which states:
“An employee… will be paid the appropriate rate of allowance… [for] lunch when required to travel a total distance on the day of at least 100 kilometres and… is located at a distance of 50 kms from the employee’s normal headquarters at the time of taking a normal break.”
PSA challenges Department position
All NSW public sector agencies and departments must comply with paying the various expense and work-related meal allowances in the Crown Conditions Award which are annually adjusted from 1 July and published by NSW Premier’s Department Circular (C2026-04) – including lunch meal allowances under clause 29.
In correspondence with DoE Industrial Relations and in Joint Consultative Committee meetings, the PSA has made our position clear. The PSA believes the clause, read plainly, provides an entitlement for workers who meet the criteria to be paid a lunch meal allowance, irrespective of how regularly they travel for their role, or in the course of their work.
Members raised it – your union pursued it.
We thank impacted members for bringing this to the attention of the PSA and for your patience as we pursue this matter. We understand that field officers across WHS, ICT, Training Services, and other areas, including regionally, have been especially impacted.
The PSA can assure members that we are committed to fighting for and upholding your workplace/industrial rights and entitlements, and to defending the integrity of the Crown Conditions Award.
We appear in the IRC in the coming weeks and will keep you updated as the dispute progresses.
PSA Staff