Entitlement
A full time employee shall be entitled to 114 hours (equivalent to 15 days on the basis of a 38 hour week and 7.6 hour day) of paid personal leave per year of service.
Part time employees shall be entitled to a prorate amount of 114 hours of paid personal leave based on the part time Employee’s hours of work.
Personal leave credits to be available to an employee on commencement of employment and at the beginning of each school year thereafter. Where an employee commences on a day other than the first day of the school year, the employee shall receive a pro-rata entitlement.
Employees engaged for a specific period of time (fixed term) have a pro-rata entitlement to 114 hours personal leave, calculated as a proportion of the period of the contract to a full year’s employment.
No limits apply to the number of days of personal leave that an employee can access as either sick or carer’s leave.
Deductions
The employer shall deduct from the employee's personal leave credit to the limit of the credit available any hours the employee has been absent.
Portability of entitlements
Any unused personal leave is fully cumulative from year to year and portable between employers bound by the VCEMEA, subject to the employee having continuous service.
Unpaid personal leave
An employee who is unable to perform duties because of personal ill health or injury, and where paid Personal Leave credits have been exhausted, shall be entitled to unpaid Personal Leave.
Where an employee has exhausted all paid personal leave, an employee is entitled to take up to twenty days of carer’s leave without pay. Where an employee has no entitlement to carer’s leave (with or without pay) any request for leave for such purposes will be given due consideration by the employer.
Casual employees
Casual employees are entitled to not be available to attend work or to leave work if a member of the employee’s immediate family or household requires care and support due to personal illness or injury, or due to an unexpected emergency, or the birth of a child.
Notice and evidence requirements
An employee must give his or her employer notice of the taking of personal leave. The notice:
- must be given to the employer as soon as practicable (which may be a time after the leave has started), and
- must advise the employer of the period, or expected period, of the leave.
Evidence of sick leave
An employee who has given his or her employer notice of the taking of sick leave must, if required by the employer, provide the employer with a certificate of a registered health practitioner or evidence that would be satisfactory to a reasonable person that the leave is taken for a reason specified under the VCEMEA for:
- any absence of more than two consecutive working days
- any absences where the number of sick days already taken without the production of a certificate from a registered health practitioner exceeds five working days in a school year, or
- any absence on the week day immediately before or immediately after a public holiday so long as that week day is a working day.
Evidence of carer’s leave
An employee who has given his or her employer notice of the taking of carer’s leave must, if required by the employer, give the employer a certificate from a registered health practitioner or evidence that would be satisfactory to a reasonable person that the leave is taken for a reason specified under the VCEMEA and that the employee is responsible for the care of the person concerned.