Know Your Rights: Acting Up at a Higher Grade

Bulletin 28 – 2017

To: All RTBU Station Staff Members,

RTBU members continue to be concerned about fair payment for acting in a role at a higher grade.

To protect your right to fair payment, RTBU members recently took management to conciliation in the Fair Work Commission. At that meeting the Commission recommended that to ensure payment, salaried members need to be clear about what role you are being asked to perform when you are asked to come in and cover a shift or an absence.

For example, if you are a Duty Manager and you are asked to come in and work a shift because the Station Manager is not there, you will not automatically be acting in the Station Manager’s role.  Unless you are specifically asked to perform the role of a Station Manager you are unlikely to be paid at a higher grade.

As a result of the Commission’s recommendation, we strongly advise that before you accept a shift or duties at a higher-grade, you first get your manager to confirm in writing the rate of pay and duties to be performed. If you are asked to work because there will be no Station Manager but will only be paid for the Duty Manager role, you do not have to accept the work.

If you are a wages grade employee who is acting in a salaried position and you are engaged for 2 hours or more in a higher graded capacity within a shift, you will be paid the full shift at the higher rate of pay.

To stand up for your rights at work, it is important you are a member of the RTBU. To join, call 9264 2511 today!