HSC graduates: beware of predatory tutoring businesses (1 Viewer)

sida1049

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2013
Messages
927
Gender
Male
HSC
2015
The selective school memes page made a post warning HSC graduates from wage theft that happens way too common in the tutoring industry. Past tutors who worked for Delta spoke up about this happening there, then the page got deleted and threatened with legal action. This happened very recently, so here is the only article at the current point in time.

To HSC graduates looking to tutor: until the tutoring industry gets the regulation it needs to prevent the exploitative practices that happen all the time, go private instead.
 

blyatman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2018
Messages
539
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
That's an interesting article. However, I would wait for an actual article from a more legitimate source, as we might not know the full story.

Regardless, over the years I've worked at my fair share of tutoring centers before (>5), and I've never had any issues with pay as most employers know their responsibility. The tutoring industry is regulated - it's regulated by the same law that applies to all jobs: the Fair Work Act, so it's not reasonable to generalise an entire industry based on one (or even a few) bad apples, as this can (and does) happen in many other industries. E.g. there's plenty of examples of staff not being paid in restaurants, yet it would be unreasonable to say "because of this I will never work at a restaurant".

If the allegations in the article turn out to be true, then Delta could've broken the law. However, it would be a bit unreasonable to be scared off working for tutoring colleges, since most of them (in my experience at least) play by the rules. Of course, beware of predatory tutoring businesses, as you would any other business.

I'm not saying that colleges are better than private vice versa, I'm just saying that a bad apple shouldn't be used to generalise an entire industry. E.g. I'm sure there's plenty of cases where students might not pay their tutor for a few lessons before randomly permanently disappearing, which is probably more likely to happen than not getting paid while working for a college, since the tutor is unlikely to consider legal recourse (not to mention there's no signed contracts). However, it would be equally unreasonable to use this as an example to say "don't do private, go coaching college".
 
Last edited:

sida1049

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2013
Messages
927
Gender
Male
HSC
2015
That's fair. That said, regardless of the truth of these allegations, awareness should be raised to HSC graduates that exploitative practices do happen in the tutoring industry. Moreover, the fact that it wasn't even the post that was deleted, but the entire page itself, is pretty incriminating imo. Especially since their post on the allegations by past Delta tutors didn't explicitly state that Delta is/was indeed breaking the law, but merely posting and summarising screenshots of the comment section.

Also, from my knowledge of tutoring businesses is that more than a few of them pay HSC graduates in cash, and sometimes below minimum wage. I worked in one where this was the case, and I've heard personally from peers who worked in other places who also experienced the same thing. (And if an HSC graduate tries to apply for tutoring at a business, they're significantly more likely to be accepted into shadier places than the more legit ones.)

I think there should be something in place to keep a closer eye on tutoring businesses, since fresh students straight out of the HSC are unlikely to be confident enough to seek legal advice and right wrongs when needed.
 

iSplicer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2008
Messages
1,806
Location
Merrylands, NSW
Gender
Male
HSC
2010
Uni Grad
2017
Thank you very much :) (Edits: pedantic 3am formatting)

I can't get into the specifics of what happened because the question of legal action looms given how much this has spiralled out of control with substantially influential entities absolutely making stuff up in threatening the livelihoods of those who rely on Delta for income, but I'm not one to ignore an invitation to comment when it's made in good faith - even though I'm aware that I'm going to be crucified regardless of what I say.

This post isn't for myself (in fact I only risk complicating matters for myself further) - but for Delta's current, amazing, incredible employees as the current slandering affects everyone I work with. My colleagues are innocent and are unfairly affected by the blatant hate that's occurring, even if it's not obvious to you that they are. They are being harassed, heckled and contacted by randoms because of what's happened. Please stop going after my employees - I'm your target if you have grievances to air. We aren't large enough of a company for slick PR tricks to work so we can only rely on sincerity.

I've accepted that I have no control over those who've already committed to animosity and hatred without actually knowing what happened; so the below points are for those who think there could even be a slight chance of another side to this story existing. Everything I say from here on in relies only on your judgement and very basic reasoning - I'm going to make literally no comment about anything that did or did not happen.

1. Imagine you own a service-based business with employees. You'll know that your employees are your livelihood. Your employees ARE your business. You come up with a nice name and fancy logo but your employees are the beginning and end of what gives it meaning. They can make or break you depending on how happy they are with how you treat them. They will tell other people about you if they believe they've been mistreated. These are basic facts that you already understand. Now, try and come up with the most valid reason you can as to why despite all of this, you'd allow a certain group of three employees to resign following a pay dispute that you could've resolved rather easily (the amounts demanded were never going to bankrupt you).

Let's call this Reason X.

2.
Imagine now that the same business happens to be a tutoring company for students sitting their HSC for a very confusing and difficult subject, and that parents in the community have made large sacrifices in trusting you to help their child. How happy these parents and students are determines whether you have enough money to pay rent for another month because otherwise, all losses come out of your pocket. You know that you're not the one teaching your students - your employees are, and unless they're happy, students won't be. You went to a public school, don't have rich parents and are on the hook for a five year lease and have substantially risked your main career on a business that could screw up and potentially destroy your financial future. Sure, you're trying to make money and it's all on you if you screw it up. You accept this is completely fair but for better or worse, you've decided to try anyway.

You find that your business actually teaches English which requires far more student support where teachers are paid much, much higher because it's so much harder to teach and there are just no good English tutors out there. You need to have 25+ courses written for each text for a new syllabus. In addition to classes that are incredibly difficult to teach, you provide unlimited essay marking and individual tutorials for all of your students because you aspire to offer the best product out there regardless of how hard it will be. You have no choice but to charge more money for your service as a result, but now you have no choice but to make large promises and can only survive another day if these are met, because people aren't stupid to pay a higher price for nothing and you'd be screwed if you made promises you couldn't keep. This makes you so much more reliant on your employees to understand your vision and meet these higher expectations.

If Reason X for allowing employees to leave just because of an easily solved pay dispute no longer makes sense for a business of this description, try and replace it with an alternative if you can.

3.
Imagine now that as the owner of the same business, you are the dumbest and objectively the least academically qualified of all the tutors you employ (this is legitimately true). Your employees are highly successful, intelligent people who are literally the best society has to offer. This without doubt also applies to the three employees who left. Sure, you're their 'employer' but they are highly competent people who are aware of their rights and their protections. The age difference between you and the youngest employee is well below ten years. You have no business partners to help you. Other tutoring companies hate you. School English faculties hate you. Random people who own meme pages on Facebook you've never met hate you. Writers from student newspapers which you've always respected hate you. They lie that they contacted you for comment and even mention your profession and place of employment on the basis of unfounded allegations because they want to hurt you in every possible way they can sitting behind a keyboard.

Given all of this, even if you were evil and wanted to exploit your employees you have enough sense to know that your employees are too smart to put up with an inch of it. They know how much they are worth and are acutely aware that they have options. Even if you tried to do something dodgy and they didn't want to fight you, you are perfectly aware that they could easily tutor privately in a second or just leave to work at another tutoring company down the road. You are highly, highly dependent on these people agreeing to continually work with you.

If Reason X for allowing employees to leave just because of an easily solved pay dispute no longer makes sense for a business of this description, try and replace it with an alternative if you can.

4.
Imagine now that the same business is tiny in size (<15 employees total) relative to the work that it does. Despite this, you make it work because each person plays a very important role in your business and you believe you work well with everyone you employ. But you know, and they know, that unlike a large, corporate firm, you don't have many employees you can lose before you're in serious trouble. Your business stopped taking new Year 12 students in March of 2019 due to not having enough tutors. You don't want to relax your hiring criteria because students have come to expect a certain standard given the complexity of the subject you teach. You need the small amount of people that you have to remain happy and stay working with you. You understand that there is literally nothing more important than this. You know that doing the wrong thing could easily risk everyone leaving en-masse and destroying you.

If Reason X for allowing employees to leave just because of an easily solved pay dispute no longer makes sense for a business of this description, try and replace it with an alternative if you can.

Solving for X


I'm really sorry for the anticlimax. Very broadly, you can think of two solutions for Reason X given all of the above. It's an anticlimax because both reasons are incredibly simple. Everyone is assuming the second reason below, but I know at some point the first would've popped into your head if you have absolutely any idea about how the world really works. Here's the key part again: absolutely nothing within this post requires belief of any particular version of recent events on anyone's side; it involves only a simple process of reasoning requiring a very basic level of intelligence.

The first possible solution for why you'd allow unhappy employees to leave following a simple pay dispute [Reason X] is that they were incredibly poor team players who systematically avoided work, discouraged students from booking lessons, never checked up on students as to how they were doing for months at a time (despite being paid per month per student), were barely ever present at the centre and were identified as risking the reputation of not just your entire product, but those of your remaining employees. You would've let any other reason slide but your hands are tied because you'd rather risk your revenue than compromise the quality of the help you give to your students. You were hoping to speak with them about improving going forward, but they literally refuse to meet you and write a letter threatening to resign. You've never experienced any form of pay dispute before, believe you've done the right thing, and very importantly, are applying the same policies equally to everyone you employ, the vast majority of whom have raised no concerns. Two of the three are smart enough not to make public comments about this. Most unfortunately, one is not and accuses you of everything you're not on a meme page which goes viral and puts your entire livelihood at risk.

The second possible solution for why you'd allow unhappy employees to leave due to a simple pay dispute [Reason X] - despite knowing all of the very basic facts mentioned in this post - is because you're just that stupid and you thought scamming people for a few thousand dollars was worth risking the entire business that you'd built from the ground up and had single-handedly sacrificed everything and worked your heart out for. Your call.
 
Last edited:

iSplicer

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2008
Messages
1,806
Location
Merrylands, NSW
Gender
Male
HSC
2010
Uni Grad
2017
The selective school memes page made a post warning HSC graduates from wage theft that happens way too common in the tutoring industry. Past tutors who worked for Delta spoke up about this happening there, then the page got deleted and threatened with legal action. This happened very recently, so here is the only article at the current point in time.

To HSC graduates looking to tutor: until the tutoring industry gets the regulation it needs to prevent the exploitative practices that happen all the time, go private instead.
My understanding was that the page got taken down very late on Sunday because the owners realised that this had seriously, seriously gotten out of hand, but well after this had massively exploded (which only takes hours on social media). We hadn't made any legal threats then because lawyers tend not to work on Sundays.
 

sida1049

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2013
Messages
927
Gender
Male
HSC
2015
This is fair, and the truth of the matter of this Delta-specific issue is up in the air.

We hadn't made any legal threats then because lawyers tend not to work on Sundays.
For example, I actually wasn't told that Delta threatened the admin with legal actions - I was given the account that Delta sued the admin. This was yesterday (Tuesday), but Sunday. But I corrected the account to "threatened" to be more general.

My understanding was that the page got taken down very late on Sunday because the owners realised that this had seriously, seriously gotten out of hand, but well after this had massively exploded (which only takes hours on social media).
I don't mean to be skeptical, but the admin could just as easily removed the posts instead, instead of deleting their entire page, which is typically the thing that happens unless a third party complains and zucc whips out the delete hammer.

I think that regardless of the specifics in this particular case, I think the message is an important one, that HSC graduates need to be wary of what's out there (even if the situation bringing forth the discourse can get unfortunately ugly). The reasons that you've listed for why an employer should treat their employee fairly are very sound and very reasonable. But people aren't always sound and reasonable. In a perfect world reason along would allow the best and most ethical ideas to triumph, but this is definitely far from reality. The fact that I know and have tutored for businesses that paid their young employees in cash as little as $15 an hour is proof of that. Reason alone is insufficient, and we all need to pay attention to the details to (a) get to the truth and (b) avoid unethical practices. This Delta case is a perfectly good example; the employer has every reason to treat their employee fairly, and the employee, who definitely risks getting severely sued for defamation here, has every reason to be truthful. Clearly something is off here, so reason flies out the window.

@iSplicer I hope everything works out well. My intention here isn't to slander Delta, but rather to raise up an important issue for young adults for which the discourse is very sparse.
 

dan964

what
Joined
Jun 3, 2014
Messages
3,473
Location
South of here
Gender
Male
HSC
2014
Uni Grad
2019
Thank you very much :) (Edits: pedantic 3am formatting)

I can't get into the specifics of what happened because the question of legal action looms given how much this has spiralled out of control with substantially influential entities absolutely making stuff up in threatening the livelihoods of those who rely on Delta for income, but I'm not one to ignore an invitation to comment when it's made in good faith - even though I'm aware that I'm going to be crucified regardless of what I say.

This post isn't for myself (in fact I only risk complicating matters for myself further) - but for Delta's current, amazing, incredible employees as the current slandering affects everyone I work with. My colleagues are innocent and are unfairly affected by the blatant hate that's occurring, even if it's not obvious to you that they are. They are being harassed, heckled and contacted by randoms because of what's happened. Please stop going after my employees - I'm your target if you have grievances to air. We aren't large enough of a company for slick PR tricks to work so we can only rely on sincerity.

I've accepted that I have no control over those who've already committed to animosity and hatred without actually knowing what happened; so the below points are for those who think there could even be a slight chance of another side to this story existing. Everything I say from here on in relies only on your judgement and very basic reasoning - I'm going to make literally no comment about anything that did or did not happen.

1. Imagine you own a service-based business with employees. You'll know that your employees are your livelihood. Your employees ARE your business. You come up with a nice name and fancy logo but your employees are the beginning and end of what gives it meaning. They can make or break you depending on how happy they are with how you treat them. They will tell other people about you if they believe they've been mistreated. These are basic facts that you already understand. Now, try and come up with the most valid reason you can as to why despite all of this, you'd allow a certain group of three employees to resign following a pay dispute that you could've resolved rather easily (the amounts demanded were never going to bankrupt you).

....

I'm really sorry for the anticlimax. Very broadly, you can think of two solutions for Reason X given all of the above. It's an anticlimax because both reasons are incredibly simple. Everyone is assuming the second reason below, but I know at some point the first would've popped into your head if you have absolutely any idea about how the world really works. Here's the key part again: absolutely nothing within this post requires belief of any particular version of recent events on anyone's side; it involves only a simple process of reasoning requiring a very basic level of intelligence.

The first possible solution for why you'd allow unhappy employees to leave following a simple pay dispute [Reason X] is that they were incredibly poor team players who systematically avoided work, discouraged students from booking lessons, never checked up on students as to how they were doing for months at a time (despite being paid per month per student), were barely ever present at the centre and were identified as risking the reputation of not just your entire product, but those of your remaining employees. You would've let any other reason slide but your hands are tied because you'd rather risk your revenue than compromise the quality of the help you give to your students. You were hoping to speak with them about improving going forward, but they literally refuse to meet you and write a letter threatening to resign. You've never experienced any form of pay dispute before, believe you've done the right thing, and very importantly, are applying the same policies equally to everyone you employ, the vast majority of whom have raised no concerns. Two of the three are smart enough not to make public comments about this. Most unfortunately, one is not and accuses you of everything you're not on a meme page which goes viral and puts your entire livelihood at risk.

The second possible solution for why you'd allow unhappy employees to leave due to a simple pay dispute [Reason X] - despite knowing all of the very basic facts mentioned in this post - is because you're just that stupid and you thought scamming people for a few thousand dollars was worth risking the entire business that you'd built from the ground up and had single-handedly sacrificed everything and worked your heart out for. Your call.
If the allegations are true, then they are serious, and a matter for a court or Fair Work to assess and decide.

I think the contingent issue seems to be on this supposed change of how the employees were being paid at Delta
The two contentions raised are:
- The lack of communication on the change to employees
- The change being applied retrospectively, leading the business to balance the sheet by apparently paying some employees $0 for October.

The combination of these two things is what is the heart of the issue. It isn't that Delta is being malicious but a pay dispute that got way out of hand. Of the two, the latter is serious, and in my honest opinion, should never have been considered (even if it meant loss of revenue).

Despite any good intentions of Delta in this, as mentioned before hand by the quoted response, if even these 2 things are true, then this (referring to applying changes retrospectively) was a poor and unreasonable decision made on the part of the business, even if the employees in question were lazy and systematically avoided work (in which case up to 3 formal warnings should have been given, and then if such actions continued, the employee sacked).

(The business should have not tried to balance the sheet but should have paid employees normally under the new model, which the change of course would have resulted in a loss of revenue)

And I do agree that Delta should not be shamed nor harrassed nor misrepresented for a misunderstanding and any poor judgement made on their part.

That is my understanding of the situation, and I'll suggest for reasonable people to allow Fair Work / appropriate law authorities to resolve this dispute.
 
Last edited:

jwei123

New Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2017
Messages
8
Gender
Undisclosed
HSC
N/A
Hello I’m a former tutor at Delta - one of the three involved in lately publicised events who has not made public comments until now. @iSplicer, first of all, I do empathise with Delta’s situation and I am sorry for any undue backlash arising from recent events. However here, I’d like to address Reason X from my view. It’s been difficult for me to decide to comment on this issue given speculation surrounding legal action being taken against involved parties. There are many sides to every story, I would like to share mine respectfully as I hope for greater transparency in a situation where there are clearly very different accounts and perspectives.

Reason X alleges that the tutors who resigned were “incredibly poor team players who systematically avoided work...were barely ever present at the centre”. I’d like to point out that a large part of the Supervising Academic role involved off-site script marking which was promised in unlimited quantity in addition to in-person lessons. During busy assessment periods I have spent an excess of 20 hours a week performing my role on and off-site, prioritising it above personal and university commitments in order to fulfil the on-call nature of the work. @iSplicer has personally commended us tutors for the “thank you” emails students have sent after performing well in their tasks. @iSplicer has also used my email correspondences as an example of Delta’s quality service in another BOS post and commended me for my work with the Ruse students I was primarily assigned to assist. I was by no means a perfect tutor. However from these recent comments, it’s my understanding that the work and character of myself and my former colleagues has been quite misrepresented and misconstrued.

I can also attest that at least 5/8 tutors affected by pay deductions expressed concern/unhappiness about the retrospective change either publicly or privately, not just the subset of 3 tutors who jointly resigned.

Concerning the fact of tutors never checking up on students for months at a time, despite being paid per month per student - I believe that Delta had communicated the expectation that it was the student’s responsibility to engage with their Supervising Academic’s services to whatever extent they wished, not the reverse. We were also given the understanding that the variance between very highly engaged and less engaged students balanced to create a fair remuneration rate, especially when each tutor was assigned an abundance of about 20-40 students. This expectation of tutors reaching out individually to less engaged students was not clearly communicated to us until pay deductions had already been made.

It’s my belief that Delta overall paid us well. We were by no means working near minimum wage. However, regardless of level of rumuneration and alleged tutor work ethic, at the core of the issue is that the pay change was made retrospectively and without transparent communication, as suggested by @dan964. The issue is, pay was deducted that was agreed on in verbal understanding and in contract.
 
Last edited:

seremify007

Junior Member
Joined
Apr 29, 2004
Messages
10,049
Location
Sydney, Australia
Gender
Male
HSC
2005
Uni Grad
2009
It's always good to hear both sides of the story, but just taking a step back, in any organisation which is so dependent on their employees as the 'assets' of the balance sheet (figuratively), wouldn't it make more sense to both engage with them throughout any significant decisions around strategy/how they contribute to the success of the organisation, and also to give them a vested interested or 'skin in the game'?

I don't think what the entrepreneurial spirit which led to certain marketing/product mix strategy offerings is wrong, but maybe the way it was discussed with those who have to actually deliver on it could've been significantly improved.
 

loversinjapan

Swag Queen
Joined
Nov 19, 2012
Messages
343
Location
the osaka sun
Gender
Female
HSC
2013
I'm a current employee at Delta and, for full disclosure, I have been personally impacted by this entire shit storm (and this will inevitably affect my perspective) in so many ways.


I'm upset and angry as I'm seeing horrible messages from people; I'm seeing my friends and colleagues being spoken about in dehumanising and completely offensive ways; my students have been impacted by this, asking me whether I'm going to be staying, whether they can tell people they go to Delta anymore, whether things will be okay; my colleagues are experiencing financial and emotional anxiety over the uncertainty; and the entirely reductive and careless way in which this was approached through a meme page and through an HONI SOIT article, which quite literally caters to our main student base (selective school students, high-achievers who go on to attend and seek referrals from USYD, UNSW etc.), just really astounds me.


I can't imagine a world in which this level of trolling bullcrap directed at us was not intended where a person chooses to post a completely reductive comment on a meme page that has 17,000 teenage followers.


But I also have everything to lose by supporting an exploitative firm or director.


No matter how long I've worked with the director, or regardless of the friendship we've developed, I'm not sacrificing my integrity, career and reputation where I see wrongdoing. I plan on working on public policy in the public education sector for the rest of my life. I don't really have the option of standing by and watching worker exploitation in an educational institution, or to be associated with it. I'd be out in a heartbeat if that were to eventuate.


I’m deeply encouraged by the fact that since this has blown out of proportion on social media, we have received numerous emails from graduates confirming that they support us, and with detailed evidence of the complete lack of professionalism (and some contractual violations) exhibited by some of the resigned tutors this year. Thank God this has come to surface now, we can fix it and only improve things for our next round of graduates.


  1. 'The expectations weren't made clear and this was a sudden, retrospective deduction'.

    I'm a Supervising Academic (the position from which the previous tutors resigned), and the contract very lucidly states that the primary duty is to act as an: 1. ‘ongoing mentor’; 2. ‘A first point of academic contact’; 3. assisting students for each of their assessments and through ‘ongoing’ academic ‘monitoring’ and ‘mentorship’, through an ‘integrated’ approach, as we move towards a school-specific and assessment/text-specific service for students. The contract clearly states that tutors are paid up until the last point of academic contact for terminated students. Students are terminated from our system when they disenrol and when their enrolment/paid-up-until-date expires. There was an email sent out in July this year, which clearly restated this, and even encouraged tutors to send their students an email if haven't been in contact in the past month, to ensure that their last point of academic contact is up to date for the payroll. There is no ambiguity here, I don't really understand in what world any employee assumes that no work=remuneration, and I can't imagine a world where any employer would encourage this. That is absurd.

  2. 'The Exploited Worker v. The Evil, Exploitative Tutoring Overlords'.

    The language and context here are so, so important, which obviously can't be revealed to people online due to privacy, and as the above ex-tutor has stated, due to the probability of legal proceedings. It's frustrating, I understand why people are erring on the side of scrutiny at Delta, because this has been slotted into the overarching narrative of 'exploited workers' v. 'capitalist monsters', which is a narrative that I am duly happy that people are scrutinising. And as people who state ranked and have the highest rates of literacy in their cohort, I'm pretty sure that they were fully aware of which narrative they were selecting when they chose to post their comments.

    But in reality, we're a small company with less than 10 full-time equivalent staff that makes nowhere near the amount of revenue people think we do; we're a bunch of young adults trying really hard to make it work; I'm a freakin' English Literature major from a povo family and the director is a training psychiatrist whose parents work in schools. We're not millionaires basking in the riches of tutoring, scrounging what we can take from workers. The 'exploited' workers were being paid absolutely ridiculous amounts of money, exponentially more than I'll make as a teacher working in a school if I were to work their hours. Delta is a place that provides services to young people and their parents who are investing their money for the best education; it sustains the livelihoods of staff who need to pay rent, eat and live. I've poured my heart into making this a great place amongst students and parents for the past six years. I absolutely cannot believe that such a stupid and small situation of discontent has turned into this public mess. The fact that so many students that I've taught over the six years have messaged me asking about this situation, checking if I'm okay, asking if they can do anything, indicates that it's turned into a nasty situation that grossly and disproportionately questions the integrity of myself and the work that Delta does. Frankly, it’s embarrassing.

(continued in next post)
 

loversinjapan

Swag Queen
Joined
Nov 19, 2012
Messages
343
Location
the osaka sun
Gender
Female
HSC
2013
3. The tutors actually did work; they're being misrepresented as lazy'.

I have no doubt that some good work was performed by the tutors, and likely to differing extents based on the staff member in question. Particularly the above tutor, I know for a fact was producing good work with many of my Ruse students. I'm also entirely sure that any work that was done was remunerated, and any good work was recognised. I'm very sorry that you in particular feel the quality of the work you did perform is being misrepresented.

However, it seems absurd to me that anyone could interpret the idea that it's acceptable to not contact students for weeks, or even months, at a time. Surely it's a pretty basic principle to assume that the contrasting levels of engagement on behalf of students will serve to balance out the work load. But this assumes that, at the very least, we've been in contact (at the minimum, an email about how to prepare for a specific text or assessment, or what to work on during the holidays) with a student at least once in a given month). A month constitutes almost half an entire school term for a high school student. The whole 'disengaged/engaged student balance' assumes there's an insanely diligent student sending 1-2 essays a week in perpetuity, while there's another student who might only submit an essay in the lead up to their assessments.

I've worked with the director for six years and have never heard him encourage anyone to avoid engagement with students. It's simply not a part of our ethos and philosophy, and there’s no way we could have survived for six years with this mode of operation. To hold such a horrible view when approaching an educational service for children and their parents who are entrusting us with their hard-earned money is unethical at best, and just straight up vile at worst. There have been numerous complaints submitted by students with attached evidence, students who have specifically named multiple instances where some (not all) tutors have lied; evaded work; broken the exclusivity terms of their contract; discouraged engagement; produced work that has fallen well below the contractually outlined terms; communicated random periods of leave to students with no official communication to other staff, and the lot. I know for a fact that multiple meetings were held with specific staff to encourage higher standards of work.



4. The habit of throwing around legal terms after reading the fair work website.

People are publishing articles and public comments citing the impossibility of 'defamation' ('10' employees assumes full-time equivalents, where Delta falls well below the threshold; for a corporation, any form of basic, legal review would have considered the possibility of injurious falsehood) and the exploitative nature of 'deductions' willy nilly after reading a couple of pages on the Fair Work website, a Facebook comment written in a minute out of context, and a bunch of completely irrelevant cases at most. The complete carelessness and lack of conscientiousness has resulted in an absolute shit storm of anxiety, stress, tears, hurt, reputational and commercial damage, and the lot. To top it off, a few months back, a tutor suddenly left us and tried to get paid a negligible amount beyond the last date of academic contact for their students through the Fair Work Ombudsman, and this request failed on the basis that the terms were very clear on our side.

5. 'Other tutors were upset by this as well'.

I've been in close conversation with these 'other tutors' mentioned, and all of them have told me that they sat down privately with the director, and amiably and explicitly stated that this method of calculation is fair. Every single one of them has expressed shock and disagreement with the recent methods of the ex-staff posting comments on meme pages and public media. Everyone who has resigned has cited numerous other reasons as to why it's their natural time to leave and pursue their careers and had expressed their plans much earlier - it's the end of the year, the PR scandal is putting stress on everyone, and people are pursuing their med rotations, their own personal wellbeing, intense penultimate years, law clerkships, so on and so forth. I have been upset with decisions made by the director in the past as well - in a work relationship that has spanned six years, I see that as pretty standard. The one time I had to resolve anything was when I was 17 or 18 - I messaged him, we sat down and had a chat, and it was all made completely clear within three minutes of conversation.

If you’ve gotten this far, wow, you are a gem. This situation is just completely absurd, and I worry. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk.
 

Drdusk

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Feb 24, 2017
Messages
2,025
Location
a VM
Gender
Male
HSC
2018
Uni Grad
2023
This is quite interesting, there's always two sides to every story. It would be better if the meme pages and what not provide both sides to the story, linking this thread or something would be a great start!
 

loversinjapan

Swag Queen
Joined
Nov 19, 2012
Messages
343
Location
the osaka sun
Gender
Female
HSC
2013
This is quite interesting, there's always two sides to every story. It would be better if the meme pages and what not provide both sides to the story, linking this thread or something would be a great start!
To be honest, I think we're all ready for this PR scandal to die down. I just want to move on and focus on the work I'm doing with my current students (their assessments are actually coming up in the next two weeks so they're all freaked out, I'm marking like crazy XD).

The meme page no longer exists (they actually had some really good content lol). People are suggesting that Delta sued the meme page and got it taken down, but that's literally not even anywhere near the truth - there was no legal action pursued there so it's really just mind boggling to sit back and watch the whole 'jury by facebook comments' thing unfold. The current meme page is just run by a vindictive/angry kid (not the original meme page owner) who is hopping on the anti-Delta bandwagon, so it probably won't be productive to pursue that line of inquiry hahaha.

The vocal ex-tutor who posted the original comments has been sharing their side to the story with every Tom, Dick and Harry lol, I doubt it'd be difficult to hear their side, at length if you were to send them a Facebook message - they've been in touch with the original meme page owner, bloggers, ex-graduates of Delta, so on and so forth - sharing, of course, screenshots of confidential emails from our internal Delta database completely out of context and misrepresenting the terms of our contract. Really mind boggling as I'm not sure what they're getting out of this aside from airing their frustrations and damaging Delta at the expense of their own integrity and legal standing if this goes forward as a case.
 

Drdusk

Moderator
Moderator
Joined
Feb 24, 2017
Messages
2,025
Location
a VM
Gender
Male
HSC
2018
Uni Grad
2023
The meme page no longer exists (they actually had some really good content lol). People are suggesting that Delta sued the meme page and got it taken down, but that's literally not even anywhere near the truth - there was no legal action pursued there so it's really just mind boggling to sit back and watch the whole 'jury by facebook comments' thing unfold. The current meme page is just run by a vindictive/angry kid (not the original meme page owner) who is hopping on the anti-Delta bandwagon, so it probably won't be productive to pursue that line of inquiry hahaha.
Oh wow ok, I thought this was the case as well that they sued or something. I think almost everyone I know thought that too.
 

sida1049

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 18, 2013
Messages
927
Gender
Male
HSC
2015
Thanks for taking the time to write this. And it definitely sounds like a pretty shitty time, and your points are very reasonable.

However, because point (3) has come up repeatedly (in various degrees of aggression, might I add!), I think it is necessary to note that the point about tutors not deserving of pay for whatever reason (be it that they perhaps genuinely had poor work ethic, failed to meet their duty, etc) is irrelevant. The main issue here (as alluded to by other users) is in relation to overpayment, which is legally nuanced and the kind of thing that requires mutual written agreements on the instance of overpayment between the employee and the employer. It is reasonable to expect Delta to have prudently done this, however given the dissatisfaction of several ex-employees on the matter, it is also perfectly valid for this detail to be revisited between the parties involved.

t is certain that the particular ex-employee is aware of their legal liability, however given that they've decided to pursue the matter strongly, they clearly feel that no such agreement was reached. Regardless of outcome, an arbitrator is likely required to settle the matter once and for all on the basis of details, and not stories.
 

loversinjapan

Swag Queen
Joined
Nov 19, 2012
Messages
343
Location
the osaka sun
Gender
Female
HSC
2013
Thanks for taking the time to write this. And it definitely sounds like a pretty shitty time, and your points are very reasonable.

However, because point (3) has come up repeatedly (in various degrees of aggression, might I add!), I think it is necessary to note that the point about tutors not deserving of pay for whatever reason (be it that they perhaps genuinely had poor work ethic, failed to meet their duty, etc) is irrelevant. The main issue here (as alluded to by other users) is in relation to overpayment, which is legally nuanced and the kind of thing that requires mutual written agreements on the instance of overpayment between the employee and the employer. It is reasonable to expect Delta to have prudently done this, however given the dissatisfaction of several ex-employees on the matter, it is also perfectly valid for this detail to be revisited between the parties involved.

t is certain that the particular ex-employee is aware of their legal liability, however given that they've decided to pursue the matter strongly, they clearly feel that no such agreement was reached. Regardless of outcome, an arbitrator is likely required to settle the matter once and for all on the basis of details, and not stories.
Thank you for taking the time to read it! I really hope that I didn't come across as aggressive, but I'm the first to admit that I'm rather impassioned most of the time, even when there isn't a PR scandal going on hahaha.

And I'm in agreement with you - I've avoided engaging with the details precisely because I'm in no position to comment on the facts of the case, and more so because this is no longer a simple pay dispute, I'm afraid that it seems to have blown into something larger.
 

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Users: 0, Guests: 1)

Top