Public sector employees are now entitled to 20 days’ Domestic and Family Violence (DFV) leave per calendar year.

The new entitlement is a significant increase on the previous entitlement of 10 days per calendar year and is open to casual employees. It can be taken in part days, single days, or consecutive days.

“Unions, including PSA/CPSU NSW, have lobbied over the years for further improvements to the DFV leave entitlements and advocated for 20 days leave per calendar year as well as support for casual employees, who are overwhelmingly women, to be included in the entitlement,” said General Secretary Stewart Little.

The PSA/CPSU NSW was a pioneer in this space, getting DFV Leave into an Enterprise Agreement at the University of NSW in 2011. Soon after, Public Sector workers in NSW had DFV provisions in their Award.

“Last year, Federal Parliament passed a bill that enshrined 10 days’ paid FDV Leave as a workplace right for every worker in Australia,” said Mr Little.

“This would not have been possible without the previous decade of campaigning by the union movement and activists for better support in the workplace for employees experiencing violence in the home.

“Over the past decade, improvements in provisions for employees experiencing domestic violence have been won slowly, workplace by workplace, agreement by agreement, then in Awards, and now, in the National Employment Standards.”

The leave is not pro-rated for part-time and casual employees. Casual employees can access the leave for any shifts already rostered for that they cannot attend due to domestic and family violence.

Pre-approval is not required to access the leave and there is no requirement to exhaust other leave types before accessing DFV leave.

Leave should be paid at the full rate the employee would be paid had they not accessed leave, and no adverse action should be taken due to the need to take DFV leave.

Personal information concerning an employee’s experience of domestic and family violence, and any actions and supports offered by the employer, should be kept highly confidential.

Information will not be kept on the employee’s personnel file and information to others will be provided on a need-to-know basis. The affected employee will be fully informed of where the information will be stored, who will have access and who will be informed and why. Under no circumstances should DFV Leave taken be recorded as such on a pay slip or any other personal documentation.