Workers

The easiest way to keep a track of your record of service in real-time is by signing up for online access.

Your Service record should be updated when your Employer submits their quarterly return. You can see when it has been updated by logging in and checking the ‘Entitlements’ screen. You will also be able to download copies of your past Statements of Service for each financial year in which you have accrued service with LeavePlus.

LeavePlus produces an annual Statement of Service for the preceding financial year in early October. Your Employers for that year will be listed on the statement.

If you find that any of your Employers from the preceding financial year are not listed on your Statement of Service, you can submit a Missing Service query for LeavePlus to investigate.

LeavePlus Annual Statement of Service

Your annual Statement of Service is sent generated each year in early October. It covers the preceding financial year and includes:

• Employers who recorded service for you for that financial year, if applicable
• Your total Service recorded for that financial year
• Your total Service leave entitlement
• Long service leave taken
• Long service leave available
• Long service leave for which your Employer is liable (rather than LeavePlus, refer to Shared liabilities on the Entitlement page), if applicable.

The Two-thirds Rule

In any given quarterly return period where an Apprentice or Worker performs work that is covered by the Scheme for the one Employer for at least two-thirds of the time, the Employer must record 100% of that individual’s employment on the return form for that period.

Therefore, where a Worker is entitled to have full service recorded for a quarterly period in accordance with to the Two-thirds Rule, the Employer must pay Long Service Leave Charges to LeavePlus based on 100% of the Worker’s gross Ordinary Pay (not including hours worked in excess of or outside of the Worker’s ordinary hours) for the total number of days worked.

Note: A Worker has to be with the same Employer for the entire service period for the Two-thirds Rule to apply. Where a Worker is employed by the same Employer to perform work that is covered by the Scheme and work that is not covered by the Scheme, the Two-thirds Rule applies. This means that if the Worker is engaged to perform work that is ‘covered’ for two-thirds of the time worked in an any quarterly period, the Worker is ‘covered’ for the full time worked for that in Employer in the quarter, i.e. full Service is reportable for those 3 months.

Workers whose service may be subject to the Two-thirds Rule are typically those who perform a mix of work that is covered by the Scheme and work that is not covered by the Scheme. An example might be a landscape gardener. Landscape gardening services work is only covered in respect of commercial work performed. Domestic landscape gardening services work is not covered by the Scheme. However, if a Worker performs commercial work for 75% of the time during the quarter and performs domestic work for the remaining 25% of the quarter, the time spent performing domestic work is reportable service under the Two-thirds Rule.

In the below example, a Worker works for the same Employer for the full quarterly reporting period (65 days) but performs a mix of covered work (commercial = 44 days) and non-covered work (domestic = 21 days) work.

Where the proportion of the work covered by the Scheme equates to two-thirds or more of the time in the quarter (in this case 67%), the days and wages must be rounded up to reflect the full employment period.

Equally, where a Worker has split duties between an on-site-construction roles and say office administration responsibilities, the Two -thirds Rule will also apply.

In this example, a Worker may work for the same Employer for the full quarterly reporting period (65 days) but perform a mix of covered work (on-site-construction = 47 days) and non-covered work (office administration = 18 days) work.

Where the proportion of covered work to non-covered work is two-thirds or more (in this case 72%), the days and wages must be rounded up to reflect the full employment period.

Where the Worker performs a mix of work, i.e. work that is covered by the Scheme and work that is not covered by the Scheme, and the time spent carrying out work covered by the Scheme does not meet or exceed two-thirds of the time, you must only report the days that the Worker was carrying out work that is covered by the Scheme.

The National Reciprocal Agreement in place means that if you work interstate, your time in the industry can still be recognised alongside your Service accrued under the LeavePlus scheme. However, you must notify and register with the relevant long service leave scheme in each state or territory that you work in. Visit the Interstate Schemes page for contact details.

It is also important that you notify LeavePlus when you are working interstate so that our records note that you may be accruing Service credits elsewhere. Your record of Service in the industry is kept separately with each state or territory scheme. When you make a claim for Long Service Leave Benefit, we can contact the relevant interstate scheme(s) to confirm your Service recorded in that state or territory. Please remember to notify interstate schemes and LeavePlus of any change of address.

Can I roll my interstate service together?

No. The record for any Service accrued in a certain state or territory can only be recorded with the Long Service Leave authority in which state or territory the work was performed, i.e. LeavePlus can only keep record of your work performed in Victoria. You cannot transfer any interstate record onto your record with us.

However, when you make a claim for Long Service Leave Benefits, you can ask LeavePlus to count your interstate service in assessing your eligibility for a Long Service Leave Benefit. Simply complete the interstate section of the claim form for your current host state*, and any entitlements accrued from your work interstate can be paid out to you as part of your claim.

*The ‘host state’ is the scheme that is responsible for processing your request for a Long Service Leave Benefit.

To qualify for a Long Service Leave Benefit, your service needs to be continuous. You can have breaks in your Service record for a maximum period of up to 4 years without affecting the overall continuity of your service. As long as your Service record has no gaps of more than 4 years, all your Service will be counted together for the purpose of your eligibility for a Long Service Leave Benefit. (Note: Before 1 December 1997, the allowable breaks were much shorter.)

If you do have a break of more than 4 years, your Service record will no longer be entirely continuous. Service prior to the break will be made inactive and it will not be added on to any subsequent block of Service when considering eligibility for a Long Service Leave Benefit. If you had already reached long service prior to the break, those entitlements will still be claimable by you.

If you were a non-contributing Working Subcontractor during a Break In Service period, you can provide LeavePlus with evidence that you were still working in the industry at that time by sending us a copy of your individual tax returns for those years (showing your ABN, work type, and total income derived from performing Construction Work for each financial year). As long as this evidence shows that you were contracting and performing Construction Work in Victoria during this time, with gaps of no more than 4 years then we can consider applying an Approved Break In Service to your registration. Once approved, your service will be classed as one continuous block (provided that the period of activity and evidence is not prior to 1 December 1997).

Note: Service as a Working Subcontractor cannot typically be backdated. As paying Long Service Leave Charges is optional for Working Subcontractors, if you did not pay the charges at the time, you cannot be credited Service credits for that time.

Workers are eligible to start receiving Service credits from their commencement of employment in the construction industry or after the date coverage commenced for your trade type within the construction industry. There are two different calculations for the accrual of Service, dependent on when your service was performed:

• Service accrued prior to 1 July 2002 is based on an accrual of 0.866 weeks of Long Service Leave per full year of accrued service (equivalent to 13 weeks leave after 15 years’ service)
• Service accrued after 1 July 2002 is based on an accrual of 1.3 weeks of Long Service Leave per full year of accrued service (equivalent to 13 weeks leave after 10 years’ service).