I live in Australia (NSW) and I work at my university’s accessibility department. My work entails going to different classes and lectures and taking notes on behalf of students who face accessibility issues. Sometimes these classes are live, sometimes they are recorded.
In my work roster at the start of this semester, I was rostered to work on 2 public holidays (18/04 & 25/04). I have worked in this position for the last year and a half and I have previously worked on Sundays (and successfully claimed higher pay for these days) without needing approval from my manager. The classes on these two dates were recorded (they are usually live every Monday morning) since it was a public holiday.
I kept myself free on these public holidays so that I could do my work only to suddenly find out that I cannot claim the higher holiday rate for work done on [Saturdays/Sundays/Public Holidays/Weekday After Hours] unless I have clearance from my manager to work on those days. I did not ask for her clearance as I thought that since I was already rostered for it I did not need her approval to work on these days (especially since I have worked Saturdays and Sundays before without needing her explicit approval since the dates showed up on my roster). I submitted my pay claim and it was rejected, my manager asked me to resubmit it and timetable it as the NEXT day (not a public holiday) as she had not approved me working on the dates I mentioned.
I’m just so angry right now. Essentially, I could just tell she did not want to pay me for these days even though I worked on those days. When I told her that I have worked Saturdays and Sundays before she said that her accepting those pay claims were either a mistake or “different” because they were live classes and not recorded ones. She couldn’t really explain why it was different. Our contract states that we will be paid 250% of our usual rate for public holidays so I guess that’s why she’s being so stingy. I’m not really sure what to do as I have ASD and anxiety so did not want to fight with her/take this further so I rather impolitely cut the call and just submitted my pay claims like she asked me to.
Any advice or comments would be appreciated.