As of the First of December every year, all education employees in the public sector and private sectors receive a Salary Leave Loading payment of 17.5% loading on 4 weeks pay of their regular pay rate, based on 4 weeks annual leave. Often just referred to as Annual Leave Loading or Salary Loading.
This is a payment that covers staff over the school holiday break.
As teachers are unable to earn overtime at any stage (ever) this is not a payment for loss of opportunity to earn overtime and as schools are closed during the holidays this salary loading payment would be considered a payment under OTE (Ordinary Time Earnings) for annual leave.
I personally know as a former employee that the Catholic Education System, employees do get paid S.G. (Super Guarantee) payments on their loading payments as directed by the ATO. This was a big issue a few years back as only some Catholic schools were paying and most were not. The ATO issued a warning along with a grace period for back payments to be made of 7 years or further action taken. Everyone got a nice pay packet in back pay super contributions and lost interest.
When I asked my business manager about this in my government school, the business manager said "but we do get it". After further investigation, all government department of education employees are paid super on their salary loading payments except for teachers and education support staff. They did not understand why this was the case and had just assumed as they were getting it, everyone was.
So we both took this to the Department of Education: Human Resources and through personal contact to a former Head of the department of HR for their response. After 6 months of investigation I received a phone call stating that it has never been paid for teachers, ever. I asked if this was written anywhere in our award or other places for clarification on why is it not being considered, given that the ATO specifically warned businesses that they must pay their SG payments.
A simple - "we have never paid it before to teaching staff" was given from HR. They were unable to provide me with any documentation as to why or where that is stated.
The former head of HR for the department of education - said I was onto something and was eager to find out the results of my further investigations. Again for the same reason, it was something that was never questioned before and at no time did it cross their minds that teachers were not being paid this (as they themselves are).
After contacting the teachers union AEU, they went to their legal team and couldn't give me an answer as there is no statement in our EBA regarding any exemption of super payments under leave loading, unfortunately they could not take the matter further on my behalf and advised me to go to the ATO. My Superfund obviously want nothing to do with it, responding that "we only manage your super we dont look into how or why its paid".
So I did the next thing and followed advice by contacting the ATO.
2 years on and earlier this year I get my last reply email from the ATO.
This has escalated through multiple departments, legal teams and passed to so many different senior executive director legal manager advisers.... I have lost count. It finally reaches the desk of...
Technical Leadership and Advice, Superannuation and Employer Obligations.
The response email was following a phone call discussion about my query.
The phone call conversation went along the lines of..."At this point we are unable to continue our investigations into the matter, we believe it is in your interests to file a report against your employer for unpaid super, but we are unable to give you a direct answer in relation to your question".
The email was a generic, As discussed on the phone, you can lodge a report of unpaid super and this will trigger an investigation... etc. It all sounded like they didnt have an answer so handball it to someone else. Worst part is, after 2 years in the system I am back at square one with nothing to show for it.
As far as I know in my award Salary Loading payments must be made, but it does not state it is for loss of overtime opportunities. It does not state that it is exempt from super contributions. SG payments are made to all other education staff, which indicates the payments are considered OTE, but doesnt explain why teacher and support staff do not get them.
Everyone gets super payments on this salary leave loading in Catholic Education System and the ATO stepped in to make sure of it. But no one can show me where or why we are exempt in the government system.
Any assistance would be most welcome.
3,355 views
2 replies