80,000 reasons to check your pay
A backpay win for an incorrectly classified member is a reminder that you should contact your union if you have any questions about your wages.
In this case, a member contacted us in January seeking help with a complex pay issue dating back many years.
She’d moved to Victoria in 2017 from Western Australia, where she’d taught continuously since her graduation six years before.
She then taught at four Catholic primary schools in Victoria. Despite providing her CV and Statement of Service to her first Victorian employer, she was classified at the bottom of the Victorian teacher pay scale, and so subsequently progressed one level per year of service. Her prior experience in WA was never recognised.
It was only when her fourth Victorian school queried her classification level that she contacted the IEU for advice and assistance, and it turned out that she was entitled to back pay of over $80,000!
After initial analysis, the IEU raised the issue with her employer, Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS), who due to the complexity of calculating the discrepancies in her pay for the period 2017 to 2024 took four months to work out the extent of the underpayment.
During this time, the IEU was in regular communication with the member and pushed the relevant schools to provide the necessary information to MACS.
Without IEU intervention, it is unlikely that the backpay would ever have eventuated.
A lump sum like this, even after tax, makes a significant difference to anyone budgeting on a much lower salary, as does the higher salary going forward.
Such underpayments, usually involving lower amounts, can and do occur, because payroll is a complex process, especially when tracking employees through two or more jurisdictions. Once time fraction, leave, parental leave, fixed-term and casual contracts are considered in the context of the various jurisdictions, it is not surprising that errors can sometimes occur.
How to be pay aware:
always check your payslip, not just your bank balance
always check gross and net pay (both should be higher from 1 July 2024), and also check superannuation contributions and leave balances
check your hourly rate
if you have taken leave, ensure this is correctly recorded, and that your balance is correct
always check any letter of offer of new employment, and ensure you have been correctly classified
never accept an offer of employment without a firm confirmation of your classification, hours of duty/time fraction and pay rate
if in any doubt, contact the IEU!
This story was first published in the IEU’s official newspaper The Point, Volume 14, No 3.