Help! My employee has jury duty over Christmas

First email:

Dear Aunty B,

We have a staff member who has been called up for jury duty one day before our company shutdown over Christmas.

I understand if standard working time, you would pay normal time minus the difference of Jury payment.

However as we are in a forced Christmas company shutdown, would I continue to pay this as annual leave over this period minus court payments?

Not sure if anyone else has encountered a conflict with leave and Jury summons.

Thanks,

Mark,

Sydney

Second email:

Hi Aunty B,

Here’s an update from Fair Work:

If you’re doing Jury duty over Holidays, it will be normal time (not taken from your leave).

Public Holidays are normal.

On jury duty, it’s paid up to 10 days only as normal pay, less what is paid by the jury (you need to provide payment slips to your employer).

After 10 days, only payment from court is provided. Therefore if court goes for 14 days, we have to cover the first 10, then the court pays.

Mark,

Sydney

Dear Mark,

Very kind of you to do my job for me and to answer your own question!

Jury duty is governed by section 89(2) of the Fair Work Act, which states that if an employee is taking annual leave and is also on community service leave, including jury duty, the employee is taken not to be on annual leave.

In case any of our readers are confused by what this actually means, one of SmartCompany’s favourite legal eagles, Peter Vitale, has given this explanation:

“The employer is required to treat the period as community service leave, make up the difference between the jury service pay and the employer’s ordinary pay and then grant the annual leave at some later time.”

Perhaps we should we rename this column Aunty Mark and Aunty Peter?

Be Smart,

Your Aunty B

What are you waiting for? Email your questions, problems and issues to auntyb@smartcompany.com.au right now./p>

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