The Union has received a number of queries from Tenix employees regarding their Sick Leave rights and entitlements.
Many of these queries have complained about borderline bullying from managers who ask intrusive questions about the nature of the illness and a range of other matters.
In very simple terms all YOU have to do is the following:
- If you are not well enough to come to work you must contact your manager within 60 minutes of your scheduled start time or as soon as practicable thereafter to advise of your absence.
- The only thing you are obliged to do is to tell your manager that you are not well enough to attend work on that day.
- If your manager asks you for any specific details about the nature of the illness you do not have to tell them anything other than you are not well enough to attend work. Some people are happy enough to say “I’ve got a cold” or “I have a migraine”. This is ok to disclose to your manager if you feel comfortable to do so as these are common / everyday illnesses but you are not obliged to give this information if you don’t want to.Some people also have private medical issues that they don’t want management or co-workers to know about and you are under no obligation to disclose any of these details when you ring in to advise of your absence.
Management should not be asking or pressuring employees to disclose this sort of information against their will.
If you feel pressured in these circumstances then you should contact one of your Union reps immediately.
What are your entitlements?
- You are entitled to 91.2 hours sick leave (12 days) per year (pro rata for part timers). These hours are fully cumulative. That means if you don’t use your full sick leave entitlement one year then it automatically carries over to the next year.
- You are entitled to six days of sick leave absence without the need to provide a doctors certificate or stat dec however if the absence is three consecutive days or longer you will need to provide one of these certificates. If you take sick leave immediately before or immediately after a public holiday you may also be required to provide a certificate.
If you have any queries about your entitlements or you feel like you are being treated unfairly when you take your sick leave / personal leave you should contact one of your workplace Union delegates: Helen Grover or Pete Morrish OR you can contact David Leydon at the Union on Ph:0408 998849 or email: dleydon@asupsvic.org