39ABGrant of long service leave

#### 39AB Grant of long service leave (1) An eligible employee may apply, in writing, to his or her employer to take a period of long service leave. (2) The employee may only apply to take a period of long service leave that: (a) 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 (b) does not exceed the employee’s LSL credit at the time the leave is to be taken. > Note: An employee is taken not to be on long service leave on public holidays and during certain other periods of absence (see section 39AE). (3) As soon as practicable, but no later than 14 days after the application is made, the employer must give the employee a written response: (a) stating whether or not the employer grants the long service leave; and (b) if the employer refuses to grant the long service leave—giving details of the reasons for the refusal. Civil penalty: 60 penalty units. (4) The employer may refuse to grant long service leave only on reasonable business grounds. Civil penalty: 60 penalty units. Meaning of LSL credit (5) 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: (a) 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; (aa) then, if because of the operation of subsections 39AA(3) to (5), there are one or more weeks of qualifying service completed by the employee before the calculation day: (i) that are applicable weeks within the meaning of section 39AA; and (ii) for which the number of hours of long service leave the employee is entitled to under section 39AA cannot be determined yet; add together the number of hours for each of those applicable weeks worked out under subsection (6) of this section; (b) then, subtract the number of hours of long service leave (if any) previously granted to the employee under this section. > Note 1A: Paragraph (aa) may apply because the hours of work for a casual employee are averaged across the weeks beginning in a quarter and the quarter may not have ended yet. > Note 1: 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. > Note 2: Division 4 of this Part provides other remedies for contraventions of civil penalty provisions. (6) For the purposes of paragraph (5)(aa), the number of hours for an eligible employee for an applicable week is worked out using this formula:  where: > working hours means the lesser of the following number of hours: (a) the result of dividing: (i) the total number of hours worked by the employee as a casual employee for all of the applicable weeks covered by paragraph (5)(aa); by (ii) the number of applicable weeks covered by paragraph (5)(aa); (b) 35 hours.