Know Your Rights: Understanding holiday pay
Holidays can be expensive, especially over the long summer break for school staff if they are only entitled to pro-rata leave.
Most education workers have school holidays for six weeks, and some will not be paid for the whole period. It’s not a problem for most who were employed for the whole school year: they are entitled to be paid up until the start of the new school year. But some support staff don’t get full pay for the holidays and any teacher who started after the start of the school year, or took unpaid leave during the year, may only be entitled to pro-rata school holidays.
Under the Award, and most Agreements, teachers are entitled to “school holidays without loss of pay”. You work 40(ish) weeks of term time and are paid as normal for the 12(ish) weeks of term holidays. But those who have worked less than 40 term weeks don’t get the full 12 weeks: they get a “pro rata payment”.
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Here is an example:
Giulia started a new teaching job at the beginning of term 2. She worked 30 term weeks (terms 2-4 inclusive) out of the 40 terms weeks in 2021. She is entitled to be paid for ¾ of the year’s school holidays, or 9 weeks. She has already been paid for the term 2 and 3 school holidays (4 weeks) so is entitled to 5 weeks’ pay over summer – so she will have one week unpaid.
That is how it works for teachers at independent schools with no Enterprise Agreement, and for teachers at Catholic Schools in Victoria.
In Tasmania, if Catholic teachers have worked more than two terms in the year, they get the same pro-rata rate as other teachers, but if they have worked two terms or less, they only get a proportion of four weeks’ annual leave. This leaves some Catholic school teachers without pay for a significant part of the summer holidays. The IEU’s claim for the next Agreement seeks to fix this anomaly.
Sometimes support staff can also be unpaid for some part of the summer holidays. Category B Term-time employees in Catholic schools in Victoria get pro-rata payment for the 12 weeks of school holidays, based on the portion of the school year they worked. Support staff in Catholic schools in Tasmania get a full four weeks’ annual leave but are mostly required to have up to eight weeks unpaid each year. Most “average” their 44 weeks’ pay averaged over the 52 weeks of the year. Support staff in schools that have no Agreement (“Award” schools) also get 44 weeks’ salary averaged over 52 weeks.
Other independent schools have Enterprise Agreements. Most follow the Awards, but some have their own arrangements. If you suspect that you may have been underpaid for the summer holidays, get in contact with your organiser.
Pay Increases in the Teachers Award
Teachers being paid under the Award are about to get the benefit of significant pay increases. The IEU has won increases of up to 13.6%, largely thanks to years of work by our NSW/ACT Branch. While the current pay rates range from $53,731 to $74344, the new rates will be from $61,034 to $84,452.
Since we last reported on this there have been several developments and in particular:
It seems there will not be any waiting period or “phase in”. The pay increases will become payable from the date the Fair Work Commission signs the order.
There had been concerns that access to Level five would only be for teachers with “HALT” accreditation (which doesn’t exist in Victoria and is only a trial in Tasmania). There is now an alternate pathway that will allow experienced teachers access to this top pay rate (currently $84,452).
Teachers on the Award will generally require full registration to progress above level 1 (currently $61,034). However, if not fully registered after one year of teaching, they can progress to level two without full registration by undertaking a separate assessment.
There is no substitute for a union-negotiated Agreement, but in those independent schools where union membership is low, the Award provides a legal minimum. And that legal minimum is about to jump very substantially.