Long service leave Dilemma..Help!

[Pandora]

FRom what you have described they are correct.
Your maternity leave does not break your continuity of service, but the period which you are on maternity leave doesnt count towards your LSL entitlement period.

So if youve been there 8 years, take 12 months mat leave, this doesnt mean your years of service start again from zero when you go back to work, but the leave doesnt count as year 9 either.
Youd go back after the twelve months off and still have 2 years to go to get to your 10 years.

[Miss E]

I could be wrong, but I was under the understanding that once you've been with a company for 7 years you are entitled to your LSL upon resignation (like you would be any annual leave that you'd accrued). They don't have to let you take it as leave until you've been there for 10 years, but it does become a resignation entitlement after 7.

I'd been with my company for 9.5 years when I went on mat leave and they have let me take my LSL while on leave so that I can supplement my pay.

Definately something I would follow up because it doesn't sound right.

[Pandora]

oooooh you are resigning?
Sorry I missed that.

In Victoria at least the workplace act in 2006 changed the legistlation so that if you have been at the company for 7 years, they have to pay you pro rata your LSL entitlement. I think its federal legislation but i will check.
You'd still need to have worked there for 7 eyears exclusive of your mat leave.
If thats the case they are completely wrong and FWA will tell you/them so.

OK, NSW is different.
From the NSW Industrial Relations website:

Do I have any entitlements if I have worked less than ten years?


If you have completed at least five years (but less than ten years) of service, you will be entitled to a long service pro rata payment if you:

• resign as a result of illness, incapacity, domestic or other pressing necessity
• are dismissed for any reason except serious and wilful misconduct
• die (your next of kin may claim any long service leave entitlement still owing to you at time of death).