{"id":1199,"date":"2020-02-18T15:07:59","date_gmt":"2020-02-18T05:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/workplaceculturematters.com.au\/?p=1199"},"modified":"2025-07-05T13:34:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T03:34:33","slug":"what-are-your-work-entitlements-during-natural-disasters-and-emergencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/?p=1199","title":{"rendered":"What are your work entitlements during natural disasters and emergencies?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>After a season of devasting bushfires,\nAustralia has now been hit by a tropical cyclone and severe storms causing serious\nmaterial damages, road closures and flash flooding. These extreme weather\nevents cause devastation and losses affecting individuals and businesses. Many\nemployers are confronted with the impact these natural disasters may have on\ntheir workplace and employees. Employers and employees should be aware of their\nrights and obligations in the midst of a natural disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Modern Awards, enterprise agreements and\nemployment contracts may contain specific provisions in relation to an\nemergency or natural disaster. So, employers and employees should first check if\nany particular provision exists. If there is no such entitlement, the <em>Fair\nWork Act 2009<\/em> (Cth) (<strong><em>FW Act<\/em><\/strong>) offers a range of available options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Managing Employees During Natural Disasters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Natural disasters can force employers to temporarily\nclose their business. In such circumstances, section 524 of the <em>FW Act<\/em> <em>p<\/em>rovides\nthat an employer may stand down employees without pay during a period in which:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>employees cannot usefully be\nemployed because of a stoppage of work; and <\/li><li>the employer cannot reasonably\nbe held responsible for the stoppage. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Bushfires or floodings may cause a stoppage of work for which an\nemployer cannot reasonably be held responsible for.&nbsp; In that case, there is no obligation for\nemployers to pay employees during the period of stand down, but they may choose\nto do so as a gesture of goodwill. In any event, it is recommended to notify in\nwriting as soon as practicable those employees of the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>the start date of the stand down;<\/li><li>whether the employee will be\npaid or not; <\/li><li>the effect on other employment\nentitlements; and<\/li><li>the date when the stand down is\nexpected to end.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>When employees are already on leave or\nauthorised to be absent from work, stand down provisions do not apply to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other alternatives should be considered\nbefore an employer stands down their employees without pay. The Fair Work\nOmbudsman advises that alternatives may include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>proposing employees to take a\nperiod of accrued paid leave, such as annual leave &#8211;&nbsp; this is only possible with the agreement of\nthe employer and the employee;<\/li><li>if other worksites exist and\nhave not been affected, considering voluntary work or hours sharing\narrangements among sites and employees; or<\/li><li>organising flexible\narrangements when possible, such as working from home.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Employee\u2019s working arrangements can only be\naltered in accordance with the <em>FW Act<\/em> and any relevant award or\nagreement. Employers should keep in mind the safety and wellbeing of their employees\nwhen doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Employees\u2019 Entitlements During Natural Disasters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Natural disasters will often result in\nemployees requiring time off to care for themselves or their family members. There\nis no specific form of leave available to an employee affected by a natural\ndisaster. Employees who have accrued annual leave may use their annual leave\nentitlements in these circumstances, with the employer\u2019s agreement. Otherwise,\nemployees may be entitled to personal\/carer\u2019s leave or compassionate leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Personal\/Carer\u2019s Leave<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Full-time and part-time employees may have an entitlement to take accrued paid personal\/carer\u2019s leave if they are unfit for work because of a personal illness or injury or to provide care or support to a member of their immediate family or household<a> <\/a>because of a personal illness, injury or in the event of an unexpected emergency. For example, if the school of an employee\u2019s child closes due to a natural disaster, the employee may be eligible for personal\/carer\u2019s leave to take care of their child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Employees who have used all of their paid\npersonal\/carer\u2019s leave and casual employees are entitled to two days of unpaid\ncarer\u2019s leave for each particular occasion when a member of their immediate\nfamily or household requires care or support due to illness, injury or in the\nevent of an unexpected emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Compassionate Leave<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Employees are entitled to two days of\ncompassionate leave for a particular permissible occasion to spend time with a\nmember of their immediate family who has sustained a life-threatening illness\nor injury or after the death of a member of the employee\u2019s immediate family.\nEmployees, other than casual employees, are entitled to be paid during\ncompassionate leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When taking personal\/carer\u2019s leave or\ncompassionate leave, employees must give their employers notice of the taking\nof leave and provide evidence to support the leave period if required. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Community Service Leave for Volunteering<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pursuant to section 109 of the <em>FW Act<\/em>,\nemployees who are members of a recognised emergency management body may be\nentitled to take unpaid community service leave for the purpose of engaging in\nan eligible community service activity, such as dealing with an emergency or a\nnatural disaster, on a voluntary basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The <em>FW Act<\/em> does not specify the amount\nof time that can be taken. However, the absence of work must be reasonable having\nregard to the following circumstances:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>time when the employee engages\nin the activity;<\/li><li>reasonable travelling time\nassociated with the activity; and<\/li><li>reasonable rest time\nimmediately following the activity.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>During the recent bushfire crisis, the\ncurrent legislation has been criticised as providing insufficient support to\nthose assisting emergency services as volunteers. The minimum standards in the <em>FW\nAct<\/em> can be improved by state law, enterprise agreements or other\narrangements implemented by employers in the private sector. It may be\nunreasonable to expect small businesses to pay their employees when\nvolunteering. &nbsp;However, larger companies\nhave started to implement more generous volunteer leave arrangements allowing employees\nto take paid leave when they are away volunteering in emergency services. In\nresponse to the crisis, the government has announced a federal scheme to\ncompensate volunteer firefighters. They have also granted an additional four\nweeks\u2019 paid leave for volunteers firefighters employed in the public sector.\nHowever, those announcements have not been enough to stop criticisms in the\nmanagement of the recent bushfire crisis. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After a season of devasting bushfires, Australia has now been hit by a tropical cyclone and severe storms causing serious material damages, road closures and flash flooding. These extreme weather events cause devastation and losses affecting individuals and businesses. Many employers are confronted with the impact these natural disasters may have on their workplace and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":1200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[236],"tags":[84,141,35,145,48],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1203,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions\/1203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workn.net.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}