Coal Mining Industry (Long Service Leave) Legislation Amendment Act 2011

An eligible employee may apply, in writing, to his or her employer to take a period of long service leave.

The employee may only apply to take a period of long service leave that:

is a single continuous period of at least 14 days (being equivalent to a number of hours of long service leave as agreed with the employer); and

does not exceed the employee’s LSL credit at the time the leave is to be taken.

An employee is taken not to be on long service leave on public holidays and during certain other periods of absence (see section 39AE).

As soon as practicable, but no later than 14 days after the application is made, the employer must give the employee a written response:

stating whether or not the employer grants the long service leave; and

if the employer refuses to grant the long service leave—giving details of the reasons for the refusal.

The employer may refuse to grant long service leave only on reasonable business grounds.

For the purposes of this section, the long service leave credit (LSL credit) of an eligible employee on a day (the calculation day) is the number of hours worked out as follows:

first, add together the number of hours of long service leave that the employee is entitled to under section 39AA for each week of qualifying service completed by the employee before the calculation day;

then, subtract the number of hours of long service leave (if any) previously granted to the employee under this section.

The number of hours of long service leave that an employee is entitled to in respect of certain qualifying service may be affected by section 39CE.

Subsections (3) and (4) are civil penalty provisions.

Part 7A provides for pecuniary penalties for contraventions of civil penalty provisions.

Division 4 of this Part provides other remedies for contraventions of civil penalty provisions.