SAS Staff overtime and time off in lieu rights

SAS Staff overtime or time off in lieu rights September 2015 (PDF version)

On 1 September 2015, the PSA put out a bulletin as a follow up to the 24 August LMBR meeting.

This bulletin addressed (among other things) the impact of LMBR on workload and emphasised the right of SAS staff to be paid for any overtime or to receive time off in lieu at their election.

There have been developments since this time. As stated in the 1 September bulletin PSA Acting General Secretary Steve Turner wrote to the Minister of Education asking that our workload concerns in relation to LMBR be addressed.

The PSA received a response from the Minister on 9 September 2015, agreeing to a meeting with us.

This means that the issue of fixing the workload problem will be raised directly with the Minister at a meeting scheduled for Thursday 24 September 2015 at 1:00pm.

In addition, as previously advised, the PSA had requested that the Department send out a direction to SAS Staff and Principals to clarify that additional hours should not be worked by SAS Staff unless directed to work overtime by their Principal.

We have received a response from the Department and by now many of you would have seen the SchoolBiz advice that was released as a result of our request.

The PSA would like to advise that the advice from the Department was a document produced by their Industrial Relations personnel and did not include input from the PSA. The PSA has prepared our own fact sheet on overtime and time off in lieu entitlements to clarify the Department’s advice.

We are pleased that the Department has actioned our request and this is a win for PSA members.

SAS staff should not feel compelled to work overtime without pay or time in lieu.

We know from a recent survey of PSA members working in the 229 LMBR focus schools that the vast majority of SAS Staff are working unpaid hours to keep LMBR from failing.

The Department does not yet accept that this is indeed occurring and so the PSA is continuing with our efforts to have this rectified.

In the meantime, SAS Staff are not to work additional hours unless directed to do so and therefore appropriately recompensed.

NOTE: You should not be performing unpaid hours of work as this would potentially bring you below the award wage and be a breach of the award.

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