34 Personal Leave
- Academic and ELC Teaching Staff Collective Agreement 2014–2017
- Sick leave entitlement
- Employees other than casual employees will be entitled to paid sick leave when they are unable to attend work due to personal illness or incapacity, and do not receive workers' compensation payments in respect of the absence:
- Employees will be credited with ten (10) days paid leave in their first year of employment, credited 12 months in advance, or a pro rata amount where the contract is less than one (1) year;
- Employees will be credited with an additional forty (40) days paid leave per annum in their second year of employment, credited 12 months in advance;
- Employees will be credited with an additional forty (40) days paid leave per annum in their third year of employment, credited 12 months in advance
- Employees will be credited with ten (10) days paid leave per annum for subsequent years of employment, credited 12 months in advance.
- Leave untaken in the year of accrual is added to an employee’s entitlement on their anniversary date.*
- The anniversary date for the purpose of credit of sick leave entitlement is:
- for staff employed at the time the Agreement comes into effect, their current anniversary date;
- for staff employed after the Agreement comes into effect, their anniversary of appointment.
* The anniversary date for current staff is:
a) for ELC Teaching staff employed at the time of certification of this Agreement and staff employed prior to the time the UNE Academic Staff – Union Collective Agreement 2010-2012, 16 September each year; or
b)for staff employed after the UNE Academic Staff – Union Collective Agreement 2010-2012 coming into effect, their anniversary of appointment.
- Transitional arrangements will be: at the date the Agreement comes into effect, current continuing employees will maintain their current sick leave balance, with additional leave to be credited based on the employees years of continuous service, in accordance with clause 34.1.1, on their next anniversary date.
- Where a public holiday, which would normally be a working day, falls during a period of sick leave, the absence on the public holiday will not be treated as sick leave.
- No payment is made in lieu of unused leave on termination.
- The University may require an employee who has taken more than 25 days’ sick leave in any one year of employment to undertake a medical examination for the purposes of obtaining an opinion on the employee’s medical condition.
Additional paid sick leave may be approved by the relevant senior executive officer in exceptional circumstances if an employee is seriously ill and suffering substantial hardship and has used up all of their paid sick leave entitlement.
- Employees other than casual employees will be entitled to paid sick leave when they are unable to attend work due to personal illness or incapacity, and do not receive workers' compensation payments in respect of the absence:
- Family and Personal Leave
- An employee (other than a casual employee) is entitled to use their sick leave credits for family/carer responsibilities.
- An employee (other than a casual employee) is entitled to use up to ten (10) days’ of their sick leave credits in any year of service for bereavement/compassionate reasons, or religious, ceremonial and/or cultural reasons.
- Where an employee has exhausted their sick leave entitlement, a further two days of unpaid Family and Personal leave per occasion will be available in the event of an unexpected emergency for employees who have exhausted their sick leave entitlement.
- In the event that an employee has exhausted their sick leave entitlement, an additional two (2) days of paid bereavement/compassionate leave per occasion will be available to employees.
- Family/carers responsibility leave is to care for a member of their immediate family or household who is ill or incapacitated and require care and support or who require care due to an unexpected emergency.
- Employees with shared responsibility for the care of a family member may not access this entitlement on the same day or days, unless they can demonstrate exceptional circumstances to the University's satisfaction.
- To assist employees with family responsibilities, a supervisor may agree to them:
- taking up to two weeks annual leave in single days;
- taking unpaid leave or undertaking additional work to make up for time taken to care for a family member who is ill or incapacitated.
- Bereavement / compassionate leave can be taken in the event of the death of a member of the employee’s immediate family, or if a member of the employee’s immediate family contracts or develops a personal illness that poses a serious threat to his or her life or sustains a personal injury that poses a serious threat to his or her life. It can also be accessed where a person of importance in the employee’s culture dies, or for other reasons of a compassionate nature, given in writing and accepted by the University.
- Leave can be taken for religious, ceremonial and/or cultural reasons such as attendance or participation in particular religious, ceremonial or cultural activities. Activities may include: undertaking the observances of a religion followed by the employee, or where an employee is a member of an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander community, participating in the ceremonial and cultural life of that community.
- Casual Employees
- Subject to providing notification and medical certificates or other documentation as specified in clause 34.4, casual employees are entitled to be unavailable to attend work, or to leave work:
- if they need to care for members of their immediate family or household who are sick and require care and support, or who require care due to an unexpected emergency, or the birth of a child; or
- upon the death in Australia of an immediate family or household member; or
- other reasons of a bereavement / compassionate nature as detailed in subclause 34.2.3.
- The employee and their supervisor will agree on the period for which the employee will be entitled to be unavailable to attend work. If agreement cannot be reached, the employee will be entitled to be unavailable to attend work for up to 48 hours (i.e. two days) per occasion. No payment will be made for any period of non-attendance.
- The University will not fail to re-engage a casual employee because they accessed the entitlements provided for in this clause. The rights of the University to engage or not to engage casual employees are otherwise not affected.
- For the purpose of the Personal Leave provisions, “immediate family member” includes a child (including an adult child, grandchild, adopted child, step child or child for whom the employee is a legal guardian or equivalent), spouse, partner (including same sex partner), former spouse or partner, parent, parent-in-law, grandparent, sibling or other family or household member.
- An employee who is unable to attend work due to personal illness or incapacity, family / carer responsibilities, bereavement / compassionate reasons, or religious, ceremonial and/or cultural reasons must:
- notify their supervisor of their intended absence and its estimated duration as early as practicable on the first day of their absence (or as soon as practicable thereafter where due to exceptional circumstances notification cannot be provided on the first day of the employee’s absence); and
- provide a medical certificate (or in the case of an absence due to an unexpected emergency, bereavement / compassionate reasons, or religious, ceremonial and/or cultural reasons, a statutory declaration or other documentation that is acceptable to the University):
- for any single period of absence of five working days or more; and
- if requested to do so, for any absence after taking five separate periods of sick or carer’s leave in one year of employment without providing a medical certificate, after being notified that they have taken five such periods of leave and that certificates are required for future absences.