Victoria Police says it 'respects' the decision
The Federal Court of Australia has dismissed a case brought by the Police Association Victoria (TPAV), which sought changes to overtime entitlements under the Victoria Police Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (EBA).
TPAV had argued that short periods of work, such as time spent "kitting up" before a shift or "kitting down" afterwards, should be aggregated over a fortnight when calculating entitlement to overtime, even if those individual periods were less than 30 minutes.
Justice McElwaine rejected this interpretation, finding that clause 39.1 of the agreement unambiguously requires a continuous 30-minute minimum for all overtime claims.
"Clause 39 is not ambiguous and there is no warrant in contextual, purpose or historical considerations to displace the textual meaning," McElwaine said in the ruling.
The judge also criticised the union's fallback argument that simply exceeding 80 hours over the fortnight should automatically trigger overtime.
"Any time worked beyond 80 hours becomes overtime, including ordinary rostered hours. That is discordant with the text."
Victoria Police 'respects' decision
A spokesperson from Victoria Police told HRD that the agency "respects the court's decision."
Meanwhile, TPAV called the decision "disappointing."
"While today's decision by the Federal Court is disappointing, it was a necessary fight to have," a TPAV spokesperson told HRD.
"Our campaign for members to be paid for all the work they perform has already led to Victoria Police changing its practice and paying employees for tasks that were previously unpaid."
According to TPAV, recent changes to the EBA have resulted in tasks that were previously performed without pay, such as kitting up, kitting down, administrative duties, and handover, being absorbed into employees' rostered shift time.
"We believe that if the employer concedes that these tasks should be built into working shifts now and into the future, there should exist a liability for the past in which these tasks were performed outside of rostered hours," the TPAV spokesperson said.
"We'll now take some time with our lawyers to fully digest the ruling and its implications and discuss them with our members."
