page 2

Student Vacation Work

Reprinted from the NZUSA Education Newsletter.

An unknown number of students spend their Christmas holidays working for Government Departments. For some students government holiday jobs offer a boring, unchallenging way of making some money. For others, the experience of working for a government department is a useful way of increasing their practical education, eg. a Geology student might work for the Geological survey during his holidays because he's considering working there after graduation and wants to gain a bit of experience.

Boring holiday jobs are by no means confined to the Public Service, and working in a government office is a less demanding job than working in a shop or doing a labouring job.

However, there is one big snag. The wages student holiday workers receive in the public service are mere pittances. And the State Services Commission (the employing authority for public servants) has got away with paying students low wages for years.

Student vacation workers are employed under Section 48 of the 1962 State Services Act. Under this section of the Act the State Services Commission has the authority to decide what rates of wages to pay vacation workers (called 'temporary salaried employees' under the Act) without negotiating with the public servants' trade union - the Public Service Association. This means the Commission can pay whatever it likes to vacation workers.

Every once in a while the Commission considers the rates of pay for vacation workers and increases them. We do not know what basis the Commission has for determining wage increases.

The last time vacation workers got an increase was July last year. At that time, the Commission set out three different rates of pay for these workers: a general rate; a rate for university students; and a rate for secondary school and teachers college students and teachers (other than university students) without a degree.

The general rate provides $10.56 per working day for adults (ie. those over 20) and a married rate of $9.23 per working day on top of the adult rate (all figures quoted represent a vacation worker's gross pay, ie. before tax).

The rates for university students are graded according to the number of years a student has spent at university. A first year student gets $6.50 per working day, while a fourth year student gets $8.81.

The third category of workers are graded according to their educational qualifications. A person with less than 3 years' secondary education is paid $4.31 per working day, while someone with U.E. or Higher School Certificate gets $6.50.

It's not at all clear whether university and other students over twenty years of age are paid the adult rate of $10.56. One student who worked for a government department in Hamilton over the last long vacation told NZUSA that she started on $7.76 a day and only got onto the adult rate after arguing with the department.

This student's experience suggests that government departments need some persuasion before they will agree to pay the vacation worker the higher rate.

NZUSA has been investigating the wages and [unclear: con] of vacation workers since January this year. Discussions have been held with the Public Service Association with a view to taking a case to the State Ser-Services Commission for drastic increases in vacation workers rates of pay once sufficient information has been gathered.

NZUSA would like to hear from students who worked for government departments during the last long vacation or in previous vacations. We would like to know where you worked, how much you were paid, what sort of work you did, how many years you've been at varsity and what course you're doing. The more letters we receive, the stronger our case will be !