Know Your Rights: working on personal leave
This is an article from the soon-released edition of the IEU newspaper, The Point. Look out for your copy!
More than ever schools are tempted to make extra demands upon education staff.
All too often members are expected to work when on sick leave, carer’s leave, or annual leave. We all want what’s best for the students and we all go “above and beyond” for them, but when the principal demands work from you when you’re on leave, what are the rules?
The answer is very simple: taking leave, including annual, long service, sick and carer’s leave, means being absent from the workplace without any obligation to perform work duties. Many of us have done favours for our colleagues by helping out while on leave, but it is genuinely a favour – nobody can demand it.
Leave means no work. (Getty Images)
Teachers taking unplanned personal leave are sometimes asked (or told!) to provide lesson plans or work for students. There have been instances of employers demanding detailed lesson plans from teachers off on leave, and sick teachers being asked to include all the differentiation for individual students in their planning.
If your leave is planned in advance (such as long service leave), it may be reasonable to agree that some planning to assist your replacement can be done in advance. However, this must not significantly add to your overall workload – nobody should be penalised in advance for taking the leave they are legitimately entitled to!
Again: leave is leave. It is your entitlement, and you cannot be expected to perform work while on leave. Members have an absolute right to say “no” if an employer requests a teacher to do planning or preparation for a relief teacher.
The bottom line is that your employer is allowed to ask, but not demand.
If you have the planning/preparation already done and you’re feeling well enough to share, by all means do. But you don’t have to do any more than forward what you already have. In any case, schools should have a system for storing lessons plans, such as keeping them on a shared program or drive which is accessible to other staff, including relief teachers.
And it is not your job, while you are sick or caring for someone else who is sick, to prepare lessons for your absence or for when you return. Putting your energy into recovering from sickness is the best thing you can do for yourself, students and colleagues.
If you have any further questions about your rights and obligations while on leave or feel pressured to perform work duties when on leave, be sure to contact your IEU Organiser.