As an employer, you are responsible for ensuring that your staff are treated fairly and compensated appropriately for their work. If you have employees of the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI), a union representing many early childhood educators, you may be subject to the terms of the Early Childhood Education Collective Agreement.
This collective agreement outlines the minimum requirements for pay, working conditions, and other benefits for employees in the early childhood education sector.
However, navigating the collective agreement can be confusing, especially if you're unfamiliar with the collective bargaining process or the specific terms of the agreement.
In this blog post, we'll break down the key elements of the Early Childhood Education Collective Agreement to help you better understand your obligations as an employer and how to ensure that you're complying with the agreement
We also have a FREE ECE Collective Agreement eBook that you can use as a tool, whether you are new to the sector or looking to refresh your knowledge.
It will help you ensure that you meet your obligations under the collective agreement and provide a fair and supportive working environment for your staff.
Note: although the collective agreement has expired, it remains valid for up to 12 months after the expiry date until the collective bargaining process has been finalised.
Disclaimer:
Please note that every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided in this guide is accurate. You should note, however, that the information is intended as a guide only, providing an overview of the general information available. This guide is not intended to be an exhaustive source of information and should not be seen to constitute legal or tax advice. You should, where necessary, seek a second professional opinion for any legal or tax issues raised in your business affairs.
It also covers employees who perform clerical and administrative duties in early childhood education centres, except for those who work for the employers:
Early childhood teachers/kaiako can be employed in different roles, including in relation to supervision, care, and education of children in licensed centres, as a coordinator of a home-based education service, or to provide supervision and care for children in out-of-school hours.
Permanent part-time early childhood teachers/kaiako work less than 40 hours per week, while part-year teachers/kaiako work less than 52 weeks in one year.
Short-term relievers work for four consecutive weeks or less and are entitled to certain provisions of the agreement, while long-term relievers work for more than four consecutive weeks and are entitled to all the provisions of the agreement.
Clerical employees are primarily employed to undertake clerical and/or administrative duties, and their working hours differ depending on whether they are employed full-time or part-time.
Out-of-school care employees/kaimahi are employed in an out-of-school care and recreation programme or scheme, except where part of their employment is in a licensed early childhood education centre.
The collective agreement also defines different leadership positions:
For employees in positions of leadership, such as senior teachers, head teachers, assistant head teachers, home-based team leaders, and home-based visiting teachers, the ordinary hours of work should not exceed 40 per week or 8 per day to be worked from Monday to Friday inclusive.
However, these employees may be required to work outside or in addition to their ordinary hours from time to time to fulfil their position's requirements.
As salaried employees, they are expected to work some additional hours without additional payment, but if they are required to work more than one hour extra on any one day, they are entitled to either time off in lieu or additional payment at the ordinary rate of pay, as agreed between the employer and employee.
For qualified and certificated teachers, the ordinary work hours should not exceed 40 per week or 8 per day, to be worked from Monday to Friday inclusive between 7 am and 6 pm.
Like employees in leadership positions, qualified and certificated teachers may also be required to work outside their ordinary hours from time to time to fulfil their position's requirements.
If they are required to work more than 30 minutes extra on any one day, they are entitled to either time off in lieu or additional payment at the agreed rate.
For other employees, the ordinary hours of work should not exceed eight per day nor be less than two per day from Monday to Friday, to be worked between 7.00 am and 6.00 pm.
Note: Employees are not required to work more than their contracted hours unless they want to. But, they should ensure that no child is left alone or unattended.
Early childhood teachers (kaiako) are entitled to non-contact time, which is time set aside for planning, assessments, portfolios, parent communication, and other non-direct teaching duties. This non-contact time should be 12.5% of their total work hours each week and can be accumulated up to a maximum of 5 hours.
For example, if a teacher works 40 hours per week, they are entitled to 5 hours of non-contact time. If they work 10 hours, they are entitled to 1.5 hours of non-contact time.
During the non-contact time, teachers should be available to attend to emergencies if they arise. If a teacher has to work more than 35 hours of direct teaching in a week due to an emergency, the unused non-contact time can be carried over to the next month, or they can receive overtime pay.
An "on-call" employee is someone who needs to be available to respond to emergencies even outside their normal work hours.
For home-based early childhood team leaders or visiting teachers, they will be paid for their on-call time. The payment will be equivalent to two hours of their regular pay rate, or 2/2080ths of their annual salary, for a full week of being on-call.
If they are on-call for only a portion of the week, they will be paid one-fifth of that amount for each day of being on-call.
Any overtime worked is rounded up to the nearest quarter hour.
Note: these overtime payment provisions do not apply to leadership positions or qualified and certified teachers, as discussed above.
Example
Let's say that a teacher named Sarah normally works 40 hours per week, Monday through Friday, from 9 am to 5 pm, and her hourly wage is $20. However, her employer requires her to work an extra 3 hours on Friday to finish a project.
According to the collective agreement, any hours worked more than the regular 40 hours per week are considered overtime. So, for these extra 3 hours, Sarah would receive overtime pay, calculated as follows:
First 3 hours of overtime: time and a half.
Sarah's regular hourly wage is $20, so for the first 3 hours of overtime, she would be paid 1.5 times her regular rate, or $30 per hour. Therefore, she would earn $90 for these 3 hours of overtime.
Additional overtime hours: double time.
After the first 3 hours of overtime, any additional overtime hours are paid at double time. So if Sarah had to work an extra hour after the first 3 hours, she would earn $40 per hour ($20 x 2) instead of her regular hourly wage of $20.
If an employee is called back to work after they've already finished their workday and left the workplace or are asked to start work earlier than their normal start time but don't continue working until then, they will be one and a half (1.5) times their regular wage.
They will also be paid for at least two hours of work, even if they end up working for less than two hours.
All public holidays under the ECE collective correspond with the Holidays Act.
You may be interested in reading our Guide to Employment Law NZ: Holidays Act 2003.
If you require your employees to work on a public holiday, the following payment conditions will apply:
Beyond the annual leave provisions in the Holidays Act, the ECE collective agreement provides the following notes about taking annual holidays:
The sick leave provision in the ECE collective agreement provides more favourable leave terms than those proposed in the Holidays Act, including:
Other than annual leave and sick leave, the ECE collective agreement proposes various other types of leave per the table below:
Type of Leave |
Number of Days |
Long-term service leave |
Up to 3 consecutive months of unpaid leave |
Bereavement leave |
5 days of paid leave |
Parental leave |
6 - 12 months unpaid leave |
Professional development leave |
2 - 5 day paid leave |
Examination leave |
Per agreement between employer and employee |
Court leave |
5 days paid leave |
You may be interested in reading our guide to the 16 types of leave your employees can take.
Salaried employees receive an annual salary that includes their normal hours of work, attendance at meetings, and some additional hours. Waged employees, on the other hand, Waged employees are paid an hourly wage for all hours worked and receive overtime rates as specified earlier in this blog.
Staff are compensated according to their classifications, such as:
You can read a detailed analysis of each classification in our eBook.
The progression provision in the ECE collective agreement outlines how employees can progress through their pay scale.
Full-time employees progress through their pay scale annually, provided their performance is competent.
Part-time and long-term relieving employees progress through their pay scale after working 1440 hours since their employment anniversary.
If an employee improves their qualifications and moves to a higher step in their pay scale, the date they moved to the new step becomes their new anniversary date for progression through the scale.
Example
Let's say there is a full-time early childhood teacher who started at step 2 on March 1st with a qualification level of Q3. On August 1st, this teacher improved their qualification level to Q3+ and moved to step 3 of the scale. They can move to step 4 of the scale after completing a year at step 3, which means they can move to step 4 on August 1st of the following year.
Early childhood teachers and short-term reliever employees will move up to the next step on their pay scale once they've worked 2080 hours since their employment anniversary, as long as at least 12 months have passed.
If an employee in a leadership position works in a higher position for five or more days in a row, they will be paid on a higher salary scale based on the centre's staffing needs.
If an early childhood teacher agrees to work in a higher position for one or more days, they will also be paid on the higher salary scale determined by the centre's staffing needs.
You can find the salary and wage tables for each classification on pages 15-20 of the ECE agreement. Take note, however, that this is likely to change once the collective bargaining process is complete.
It is usually given for a specific reason, such as to compensate for expenses incurred in performing their job or to recognise a particular skill or qualification they possess that is not reflected in their base pay.
We have included a table of the different allowances in our eBook.
Collective agreements are agreements made between employers and employees or their unions, which set terms and conditions of employment that go beyond the minimum standards set by law.
These agreements often include provisions for wages, hours of work, leave entitlements, and other employment conditions.
Although collective agreements provide a higher level of protection and benefits for employees, they can also add a layer of complexity to payroll compliance.
Manually interpreting and keeping track of the terms of the ECE collective agreement can be challenging for employers due to its complex nature.
Therefore, utilising a cloud payroll software solution can help simplify the process and ensure accurate implementation of these conditions.
Cloud payroll software can help automate and manage pay scales, sick leave entitlements, progression through scales, and payments for acting in higher positions, among other things.
Here’s how Employment Hero works:
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No more manual entries or paper timesheet approvals. Supervisors and managers approve time and attendance on the go directly on Employment Hero.
Employment Hero makes it easy for payroll managers to pay staff correctly each and every pay run.
Create and customise compliant payslips that can be easily accessed in the Employment Hero cloud.
Never get it wrong. No back pay calculations. No inefficient manual interpretation. No data re-entry. Stress-free paydays that take less than an hour to complete!
If you’re interested in moving from a manual payroll system to Employment Hero, get in touch with us today for a free demo.