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School sleepover staff awarded back pay…

The Employment Court has upheld a claim by 11 staff of two boarding colleges for extra pay relating to sleepovers. They were required to be available to attend to incidents in the boarding houses of their schools over night.

The Court held that the Minimum Wages Act applied to the staff even though they were paid a salary rather than hourly wages. It found they were entitled to the minimum wage for each hour they were on duty (whether allowed to be asleep or not).  The staff worked up to 70 hours per week when nights on duty were calculated in to their pay. The expected bills for back pay could be many tens of thousands of dollars for each school.