Kia ora whanau,
Things have evolved rapidly over recent days and, TIASA strongly support the Prime Minister’s announcement and Government’s actions in moving to Level 4 from midnight tonight.
We understand the anxiety that these unprecedented measures are causing and TIASA is doing everything to ensure certainly for you regarding pay and conditions – particularly during this period of lockdown.
Letters to your Employer
On Sunday evening Shelley Weir, TIASA National President, again wrote to your Senior Management, offering to work in partnership to contain and reduce the impacts of COVID-19 for students, staff, and the wider community.
Shelley stressed the need to provide certainty for allied staff across the tertiary sector and listed TIASA’s baseline expectations for impacted staff. A copy of the letter sent to your employer was also forwarded to your Branch.
Things have evolved further since then but the TIASA baseline expectations remain the same – they are:
Staff in Self-Isolation
Where a staff member needs to be in self-isolation, the following will apply:
• Where possible, staff who need to be in self-isolation should work remotely from home. In such circumstances those staff will be paid as normal.
• If it is not possible for a staff member to work remotely, they will be paid ‘special leave’ for that period. Put simply, this means that those staff members will be paid as normal for the two-week period of self-isolation.
Staff Payment
• In all cases no deductions will be made from any allied staff member’s current sick leave balance and/ or other any leave entitlements (e.g. annual or other leave).
• The State Services Commission advice to all State sector-linked employers, including the tertiary education sector, is that staff should continue to be paid normally, whether self-isolating, working from home or COVID-impacted in other ways, and that this should not be offset against or deducted from their sick or other leave entitlements, but instead be paid as ‘Special Leave’.
TIASA remains open and working – just in a different way
During the 4 weeks COVID-19 lockdown period TIASA, will be operating remotely in accordance with our Pandemic planning and Safety and Business Continuity Plan.
We have our Branch Contacts in place (working from home) and we will providing regular updates to you, by email via them.
We will be working online, by email and by phone.
Contacts for the TIASA National Office are:
We will be working online, by email and by phone.
Contacts for the TIASA National Office are:
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Email: hq@tiasa.org.nz
Phone: Landline: 07 346 19 89
(N.B. All calls will go to voicemail, be cleared, and responded to)
Mobile: 027 293 4183
We will also provide updates, via the TIASA website https://tiasa.org.nz/
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REMEMBER: All of your conditions of employment continue.
If you have any queries please contact us as per normal. We may not be able to respond immediately but, we will get back to you.
As we go into lockdown lets remember that we as a country are doing this to save lives – our own and those of loved ones and friends.
Please stay safe, stay strong, and we will get through this together.
With much aroha.
Peter Joseph,
Chief Executive,
On behalf of Apihia Whakahaere o Te Hononga/National Executive