Ginninderra News - July 2003

Long Service Leave Bill Introduced

Wayne Berry has introduced legislation to protect long service leave entitlements for private sector workers. The bill is modelled on the successful schemes in the building and construction and contract cleaning industries. It doesn’t increase the long service leave entitlement but it improves access to it. Under these schemes a levy is collected from employers for each worker, as a worker becomes entitled to long service leave their leave is paid from the scheme’s funds.

Mr Berry said, “We have seen over the last 4-5 years the impact of high profile company collapses such as Ansett, National Textiles and Woodlawn mines. A local example was the failure some years ago of Florey medical centre—workers’ entitlements evaporated. I shared the dismay, frustration and sense of injustice suffered by one of the workers from the medical centre and I promised that I would continue to work to protect workers’ entitlements.

“Discussions with a range of unions covering private sector workers revealed many examples of workers who, because of company failures or commercial contract changes, had missed out on long service leave. It was this consultation that led Labor to promise before the 2001 Legislative Assembly election that it would put in place a new private sector long service leave scheme.

The bill will be examined by the Assembly’s Legal Affairs Committee before coming back for debate in late September.