Queensland Consolidated Acts

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS ACT 2016 - SECT 40

40 Entitlement to sick leave

(1) An employee is entitled to at least 10 days sick leave on full pay for each completed year of employment with an employer.

(2) An employee’s entitlement to paid sick leave accumulates—

(a) progressively during a year of employment according to the employee’s ordinary hours of work; and

(b) from year to year.

(3) Sick leave may be taken for part of a day.

Notes—

1 An employee is ordinarily required to work for 7.6 hours on a particular day and on that day becomes sick after working 3 hours. The employee may take sick leave for the remaining 4.6 hours that the employee is unable to work because of the sickness.

2 An employee is ordinarily required to perform work for 38 hours a week over 5 days, but has come to an arrangement with the employer to work 9.5 hours a day for 4 days a week. If the employee is unable to work because of sickness on a day, the employee may take 9.5 hours sick leave, which equates to 11/4 days sick leave.

(4) Sick leave is exclusive of a public holiday that falls during the leave.

(5) This section does not confer an entitlement or an additional entitlement in relation to employment before the commencement of this section.

(6) In this section—

"day" , for an employee who is paid on the basis of the number of hours worked, means—

(a) for an employee for whom an applicable industrial instrument provides sick leave—a day within the meaning of the instrument to the extent it relates to sick leave; or

(b) otherwise—one-fifth of the number of the employee’s ordinary hours of work for a week, averaged over each completed 6 weeks of employment with the employer.