Emma Watt Workplace Untangler - Our Articles

I sometimes have employers asking me if sick leave is cumulative.  Sick leave has now been replaced by personal/carer's leave, which encompasses situations where the employee is personally ill or injured, or needs to take time off to care for a member of his or her immediate family.

Under the National Employment Standards, full time employees are entitled to ten days of paid personal/carer's leave each year.  Personal/carer's leave also covers compassionate leave, which allows an employee to take up to two days of paid leave on each occasion that a member of his or her immediate family contracts a life threatening illness, sustains a life threatening injury, or dies.  Part time employees are entitled to pro rata leave, and casual employees are entitled to some unpaid carer's and compassionate leave.  This article relates to the ten days of personal/carer's leave rather than compassionate leave.

Under the pre-modern award system, some awards restricted accumulation of sick leave - either by requiring the employer to pay out some untaken leave, or by truncating the amount of leave an employee could accumulate.  For example, the old Furnishing Industry National Award 2003 restricted accumulation of sick leave to 768 hours - any time accrued beyond that figure simply disappeared, and the employee could not access the leave.

However, with the introduction of WorkChoices by the Howard government, and subsequently Forward with Fairness by the Rudd government, personal/carer's leave became a minimum entitlement afforded to employees by legislation rather than by an award.  Neither the Australian Fair Pay & Conditions Standards (under WorkChoices), nor the current National Employment Standards, allowed for accumulation of personal/carer's leave to be truncated in the manner described above.

Section 96(2) of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) states that:

"An employee's entitlement to paid personal/carer's leave accrues progressively during a year of service according to the employee's ordinary hours of work, and accumulates from year to year." (emphasis mine)

So there's the answer ... a full time employee's ten days of personal/carer's leave per year accumulates indefinitely if the employee does not take the leave.

Paying out untaken personal/carer's leave ... well that's a topic for another article!

If you have any queries about personal/carer's leave, please contact Emma Watt on (03) 8822 3712 or 0411 708 073, or by email on emma@emmawatt.com.au.  You should also check the specific provisions of the modern award or enterprise agreement that applies in your workplace.