From 1 August 2018, The Fair Work Commission introduced a new unpaid family and domestic leave entitlement for employees in all industry and occupation awards.
Under the new clause employees will be entitled to five days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave annually. The entitlement applies to all employees covered by an industry or occupation award and businesses are required to apply the new clause to each worker’s first full pay period on or after 1 August 2018.
Employees are eligible to take the leave to deal with the impact of family and domestic violence, providing it is impractical to do so outside their ordinary hours of work. The leave is in place for situations where an employee’s family member uses violent, threatening or another abusive behaviour to seek to coerce or control the employee or causes the employee fear or harm.
This entitlement does not apply to employees covered by enterprise awards, state reference public sector awards, enterprise and other registered agreements, or those employees who are award and agreement free.