HUNTER teachers employed as part-time casuals at TAFE NSW are "gutted", after the institution decided not to offer them permanent employment.
NSW Teachers Federation post schools organiser Annette Bennett said about 7700 - or more than 75 per cent - of the institution's teachers were employed on an hourly basis as part-time casuals.
She said they had hoped to benefit from changes to the Fair Work Act, which requires employers to assess whether casuals who have been employed for at least 12 months are eligible to be offered permanent employment.
Ms Bennett said TAFE NSW had found two "loopholes you could drive a truck through" to not offer conversion.
"They are gutted - it's a slap in the face," she said.
"After all their dedicated years of service in a regular program of teaching, this looked like it would be a game changer for these staff. Instead of spending the six months TAFE management had to look at how they could convert them, they were actually doing the opposite and finding loopholes.
"It's devastating. These teachers are having issues, trying to get home loans for instance, because they're deemed as casuals. The federation is going to mount a challenge."
A spokeswoman for TAFE NSW said the institution regularly reviewed its workforce needs and where appropriate converted temporary employees to permanent employment, including around 1366 over the past two years.
She said many casuals preferred their mode of employment because they were still working in the industries in which they teach. She said employers were not required to make offers to casuals where there were reasonable grounds not to, including where this would not comply with a recruitment or selection process required under the law of the Commonwealth, state or territory, or where it would require a significant adjustment to the employee's regular pattern of work hours.
"TAFE NSW will not convert its casual workforce to ongoing permanent employment en masse because NSW Public Sector agencies are required to comply with the merit-based recruitment and selection processes under the NSW Government Sector Employment legislation," she said.
"This includes publicly advertising permanent roles through the iWorkforNSW website, and ensuring the comparative assessment of candidates. This process differs from the recruitment and selection processes used with TAFE NSW casual employees."
In addition, she said, the enterprise bargaining agreement "sets out markedly different teaching and related duties hours for casual and permanent employees".
"Any casual employee who converted to permanent ongoing employment would be required to significantly reduce the work hours spent delivering face-to-face teaching and increase hours spent on related duties," she said.
"This would significantly disadvantage TAFE NSW students."
Ms Bennett said the institution should hire more staff to remedy this.
She said part-time casual teachers were already doing these related duties, such as preparing lessons and marking assessments, they simply weren't being paid anything or enough to do them.
The spokeswoman said where appropriate, TAFE NSW would extend invitations to casuals to participate in merit based recruitment opportunities for permanent roles.
"We are currently reviewing approximately 30 queries from casual employees about permanent ongoing employment opportunities."
Ms Bennett said part-time casual teachers had recently gone through the same rigorous process as their permanent colleagues to demonstrate their vocational currency and competency.
"These teachers have been doing the same job as their permanent colleagues for years, if not decades... but they're being treated as second class citizens."
The government is funding training for 200 industry experts to upskill and secure jobs at TAFE. They will be employed as part-time casual teachers.
