88A.—(1) An employee who has served an employer for a period of not less than 3 months is, in addition to the rest days, holidays and sick leave to which the employee is entitled under sections 36, 88 and 89, respectively, entitled to the following:
(a)
7 days of paid annual leave, for the first 12 months of continuous service with the same employer;
(b)
subject to paragraph (c), an additional one day of paid annual leave, for every subsequent 12 months of continuous service with the same employer;
(c)
a maximum of 14 days of paid annual leave.
(2) An employee who has served an employer for a period of not less than 3 months, but has not completed 12 months of continuous service in any year, is entitled to annual leave in proportion to the number of completed months of service in that year.
(3) In calculating the proportionate annual leave under subsection (2) —
(a)
any fraction of a day that is less than one‑half of a day must be disregarded; and
(b)
where a fraction of a day is one-half or more, it must be regarded as one day.
(4) Where an employee is granted leave of absence without pay by an employer at the employee’s request, the period of the leave is to be disregarded for the purpose of computing the period of continuous service under this section.
(5) An employee forfeits the employee’s entitlement to annual leave if the employee absents himself or herself from work without the employer’s permission, or without reasonable excuse, for more than 20% of the working days in the months or year (as the case may be) in which the employee’s entitlement to annual leave accrues.
(6) In the case of an employee to whom Part 4 applies by virtue of section 35(b) or who is a workman mentioned in section 35(a) —
(a)
the employer must grant, and the employee must take, the employee’s paid annual leave not later than 12 months after the end of every 12 months of continuous service; and
(b)
if the employee fails to take that leave by the end of that period, the employee ceases to be entitled to that leave.
(7) An employer must pay an employee the employee’s gross rate of pay for every day of paid annual leave.
(8) If an employee is dismissed on any ground other than misconduct before the employee has taken all of the employee’s paid annual leave, the employer must pay the employee the employee’s gross rate of pay in respect of every day of that leave not taken by the employee.
(9) The Minister may, by notification in the Gazette, do any of the following:
(a)
fix the periods when, and prescribe the manner in which, paid annual leave is to be granted to employees in different types of employment or in different classes of industries;
(b)
suspend the application of any provision of this section to any class of employees, when the public interest so requires it.
