RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) casual staff will not be paid on the national day of mourning to mark the death of Queen Elizabeth II, in a decision that puts the university at odds with most of the sector. NTEU Victorian Assistant Secretary Sarah Roberts explained that the National Tertiary Education’s request for RMIT to pay all staff on the one-off public holiday has been rejected. Roberts went on to point out that in Victoria, the University of Melbourne, Monash University, Australian Catholic University, Deakin University and La Trobe University have all made a common sense agreement not to shortchange casual staff. But RMIT has advised the Union casuals will not be paid for the day. Roberts added that casual staff members at RMIT will receive no compensation for cancelled classes and workshops.




“RMIT management’s pathetic excuse that they are not legally required to pay casuals for this public holiday is an insult to hard-working casual staff, The death of a monarch shouldn’t result in workers missing out on a day’s pay – money that some people desperately need to put food on the table. This decision is especially galling given RMIT is Australia’s only higher education institution with the right to use ‘Royal’ in its name and the monarchy’s coat of arms.” Roberts commented “This terrible call highlights just one of the problems caused by the scourge of insecure work in universities. The national day of mourning has created an unforeseen anomaly which many of Australia’s leading universities have fixed after listening to the NTEU. Not only do casual staff have to endure precarious employment, now they don’t get paid on a day which their permanent colleagues do. It simply doesn’t pass the pub test.”
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