TAFE Bulletin – Institute Managers Enterprise Agreement important update

TAFE Bulletin to Institute Managers – Enterprise Agreement update – 23 July 2015 (PDF version)

The PSA and NSW Teachers Federation met with TAFE on Tuesday 21 July 2015 to commence discussions about the next Institute Managers Enterprise Agreement. TAFE put forward a number of proposals which all Institute Managers need to know about and provide us with responses.

TAFE proposed the following changes:

1. Individual fixed-term contracts (temporary contracts) for ALL IMs
2. High-performance management systems linked to the renewal of your contact, including KPIs
3. Total removal of remote allowances
4. Up to (ie no more than) 2.5% pay rise per year for two years
5. Institute Managers to be called TAFE Managers
6. New IM Level 6 – higher paid jobs than the current IM5s. Salary to be confirmed.

Impact of TAFE’s proposals on current Institute Managers

Nothing changes immediately. However, new jobs, promotional jobs or career development/project jobs will be on fixed-term contracts.

Every restructure will lead to Institute Manager roles becoming fixed-term contract roles. Fixed-term contracts can be for as short as two or three months, to a maximum of five years (if you’re lucky).

Once on a fixed-term contract, there is no guarantee that it will be renewed or you can move to an alternate role. Renewal of a fixed-term contract will be subject to you meeting the High Performance Management KPIs. Even if you meet the KPIs for the High Performance Targets, renewal of any contract will also be subject to budget constraints and business need.

Each contract will stand on its own. TAFE has not offered (or indicated it will offer) any redundancy or severance payment for staff whose contract is not renewed.

All Institute Managers who currently receive remote allowances will have them removed. Other employment conditions, such as annual leave, sick leave and hours of work are not changing.

What do you and your colleagues want?

Please provide your feedback on TAFE’s proposal here

This enterprise agreement is an important agreement, made between the 300+ Institute Managers and the TAFE Commission of NSW. The agreement can only be made by a majority vote of Institute Managers. If 50 Institute Managers vote for the agreement and 30 vote yes, then every Institute Manager will have their employment conditions, entitlements, salaries and job security impacted by that decision.

The best way to negotiate these is collectively through your union. The PSA (CPSU) represents the interests of our members who are employed as Institute Managers in the negotiations of this agreement.

Decisions about what goes into the next enterprise agreement are yours. If you are happy with this offer from TAFE, you need to let us know. If you are not happy with the offer from TAFE we also need to know!

Talk to your colleagues. Discuss the proposal by TAFE with others. Suggest ideas and counter proposals to your PSA (CPSU) representatives.

Please forward this to your colleagues so they can provide their feedback on TAFE’s proposals. They can be found here

Are you interested in getting involved?

Please contact the PSA (CPSU) if you’d like to join the Negotiations Team or if you would like to help with the communications or campaigning.

You can contact us at or calling 1300 PSA NSW