Your wages and conditions of work are governed by the RMIT Vocational Education Agreement (2019). The NTEU Branch office or your workplace union delegate can answer any questions you have about your wages and conditions. Do not be afraid to contact the NTEU to check your contract of employment or conditions of work.

Key issues

• Hours of work
  
• Additional (replacement) Classes
  
• Fixed term contracts
  
• Course co-ordination
  
• Bullying and workplace complaints.
  

Hours of work:

• Your total workload is 38 hours per week (fulltime)
• The span of hours in which you can be asked to work is 8am-6pm.
• Your teaching duty hours range between 16 (minimum) and 21(maximum) hours per week (fulltime). It is expected that the hours you actually teach takes into account the mode of delivery, the complexity of the work, the number of programmes/modules/units to be taught, the WIL component, the assessments required and the number of students in each class.
• Your teaching-related duty hours are 0.5 (minimum) for each teaching duty hour allocated per week
• Your service duty hours are the remainder of time AFTER teaching duty and teaching related hours are completed (e.g. if you teach 20 hours a week and you have 10 hours per week teaching-related duties, then your service duty hours are 8 hours)

Remember:

• You must agree if you are asked to teach more than 21 hours per week. You can refuse to do extra hours
• Teaching duty hours must be rostered no less than two weeks in advance of the timetabled teaching period and can only be varied with your agreement. If teaching duty hours are cancelled with less than two weeks notice, they are deemed to have been taught.
• Service duty hours must include 50 hours (minimum) Professional Development time, including industry release time.
• If you teach in a Diploma or Advanced Diploma programme, you must receive 80 hours (maximum) curriculum development time per annum. This is to be deducted from your Teaching duty hours.
• If public holidays occur in a week, then your workload allocation (the teaching duty hours, the teaching-related hours and the service hours) remain at the same % over the remaining days

Personal Leave and Rescheduled Classes:

• Where practical you must notify RMIT (your line manager) of personal leave within three hours of commencing that leave.
• If you take personal leave, adjustments must be made to your workload management plan (Clause 47.2.vi).
• It is the duty of your line manager to address your absence: you cannot cancel teaching hours.
• The ‘rescheduling’ of classes must acknowledge your existing workload, teaching duty hours and teaching –related duty hours plus other responsibilities.
• All teaching duty hours must be rostered no less than two weeks in advance of the timetabled teaching period and can only be varied with your agreement
• Consultation and your agreement must be given to be allocated extra teaching duties beyond your existing workload plan or beyond 21 hours per week teaching duty hours. (Clause 47.2.ix)

Note:

• You must agree if you are asked to teach rescheduled classes or more than 21 hours per week. You can refuse to do extra hours due to rescheduled classes
• If you agree to rescheduled teaching outside the span of normal hours (8am-6pm) you may be entitled to a loading payment
• If public holidays occur in a week, then your workload allocation (the teaching duty hours, the teaching-related hours, and the service hours) remain at the same % over the remaining days.
• Contact the branch if you believe you are unfairly being treated in relation to extra teaching.

Fixed Term Contracts:

• If you are on a fixed term contract, then you are on probation for the first six months and if you or RMIT decide to terminate the contract 4 weeks’ notice must be given.
• Fixed term Probation Period does not apply if you have had a previous (similar /substantive work) contract at RMIT
• Fixed term contract teachers can only teach a maximum of 21 hours per week.

Conversion to Ongoing work

• If you have been on a fixed term contract for two or more years or have had two fixed term contracts for the same work, then you can apply to have your employment made permanent.

Note:

• The Maximum teaching duty hours that can be delivered by a Fixed term employee is 21 hours per week.
• Part-time fixed term employees are entitled to pro rata conditions such as leave

Course Co-ordination, Course Leadership, Course Responsibility or similar roles:

• There are NO course coordination or course leadership roles in the VE Enterprise Agreement (2019)- you are NOT required to do these roles.

This means you are not required to:

• Co-ordinate other teachers in the same course
• Create lesson plans and circulate/share these plans with teaching staff in their courses at least once a fortnight, if not continually.
• Modify the course pre and post-delivery and share changes with the teaching team, including the design of the course or the proof reading of the course material
• Call team meetings to discuss students/teacher issues within the course:
• If you are offered remuneration or time allowance to undertake these roles, contact the NTEU to ensure consistency of allowances. If offered time allowance to do these roles, make certain you enter it in your work planning tool.