AN120684 – Plumbers and Gasfitters (State) Consolidated Award
(i) An employee who is absent from his/her work on account of personal illness or on account of injury by accident, other than that covered by workers' compensation, shall be entitled to leave of absence, without deduction of pay, subject to the following conditions and limitations:
(a) He/she shall within 24 hours of the commencement of such absence inform the employer of his/her inability to attend for duty, and, as far as practicable, state the nature of the injury or illness and the estimated duration of the absence.
(b) He /she shall prove to the satisfaction of his/her employer (or in the event of dispute the Industrial Relations Commission of New South Wales or the Industrial Committee) that he/she was unable on account of such illness or injury to attend for duty on the day or days for which sick leave is claimed.
(c) An employee during his/her first year of employment with an employer shall be entitled to sick leave entitlement at the rate of six hours and forty minutes at the beginning of each calendar month of his employment:
Provided that an employee who has completed one year of continuous employment shall be credited with a further 80 hours' sick leave entitlement at the beginning of his/her second and each subsequent year, which, subject to subclause (v) of this clause, shall commence on the anniversary of engagement.
(ii) In the case of an employee who claims to be allowed paid sick leave in accordance with this clause for an absence of one day only, such employee, if in the year he/she has already been allowed paid sick leave on more than one occasion for one day only, shall not be entitled to payment for the day claimed unless he/she produces to the employer a certificate of a duly qualified medical practitioner that in his/her, the medical practitioner's opinion, the employee was unable to attend for duty on account of personal illness or injury: Provided that, an employer may agree to accept from the employee a statutory declaration, stating that the employee was unable to attend for duty on account of personal illness or injury in lieu of a medical certificate. Nothing in this subclause shall limit the employer's rights under paragraph (b) of subclause (i) of this clause.
(iii) Sick leave with an employer shall accumulate from year to year so that any balance of the period specified in paragraph (c) of subclause (i) of this clause, which in any year has not been allowed to an employee by that employer as paid sick leave, may be claimed by the employee and subject to the conditions herein prescribed shall be allowed by that employer in a subsequent year, without diminution of the sick leave prescribed in respect of that year: Provided that sick leave which accumulates pursuant to this subclause, shall be available to the employee for a period of ten years but for no longer from the end of the year in which it accrues.
(iv) Any sick leave for which an employee may become eligible under this award by reason of service with one employer shall not be cumulative upon sick leave for which the employee may become eligible by reason of subsequent service with another employer.
(v) If an employee is terminated by his employer and is re engaged by the same employer within a period of six months then the employee's unclaimed balance of sick leave shall continue from the date of re engagement. In such case the employee's next year of service will commence after a total of 12 months has been served with that employer excluding the period of interruption in service from the date of commencement of the previous period of employment or the anniversary of the commencement of the previous period of employment, as the case may be.
