Parental Leave

Clause 23.0 (pages 31 to 33) of your collective agreement.

You will need to make your application for parental leave at least one month before you intend to commence your parental leave. This application will need to be supported by a certificate signed by a registered medical practitioner or midwife.

The CA provides for you to be able to limit your hours of work during your pregnancy. You can reduce your hours as follows:

1. From 28 weeks of pregnancy (or earlier if considered medically appropriate by the employee’s lead maternity carer), no night shifts shall be worked;
2. From 32 weeks of pregnancy (or earlier if considered medically appropriate by the employee’s lead maternity carer), no long days in excess of 10 hours shall be worked;
3. From 36 weeks of pregnancy (or earlier if considered medically appropriate by the employee’s lead maternity carer), no acute clinical workload shall be allocated.

If you do reduce your hours as above, your salary shall be reduced in a manner agreed between you and your employer on a case-by-case basis. It is important to ensure that these calculations are not calculated as if the entire run had been worked without nights or long days. This does not fairly remunerate those who have worked a portion, or all of their night shifts or long days prior to the reduction in hours coming into effect. Instead, the reduced FTE should be calculated just the portion of the run that was past 28 and 32 weeks.

We recommend that those reducing their hours get a note of support from their Lead Maternity Carer as this will ensure that the Parental Leave Top up is to the full 1.0 FTE rather than reflecting the reduced FTE worked from 28/32 weeks.

You are entitled to take up to 12 months leave if you have had at least one years’ service at the time of commencing the leave or leave of up to 6 months with less than one years’ service.

Parental leave is generally considered unpaid leave however there are two payment options as below triggered by taking parental leave.

Primary Caregiver

If you are the primary caregiver you may be entitled to receive up to 26 weeks paid parental leave via statutory payments under the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987. You are eligible for this if you are the primary caregiver, have worked for an average of at least 10 hours a week for any 26 weeks over the 52 weeks immediately prior to the baby’s due date or the date you become primary caregiver (in the case of surrogacy or adoption). If you are entitled to the statutory payments, you are also entitled to a top of the difference between the weekly statutory payment and the equivalent weekly value of your base salary for a period of up to 14 weeks.

The equivalent base salary is that immediately prior to you going on leave. This would reflect any reduction in salary for reduced hours, unless you reduced your hours on medical advice (which is why it is important to get a letter from your LMC if you do so).

For more information regarding the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Paid Parental Leave, please visit employment.govt.nz

Non-primary caregiver

As the non-primary caregiver you are entitled to up to 2 weeks paid leave on your ordinary salary. This can either be continuous or in separate week long blocks. You should not have any application for annual leave attaching to the 2 weeks of paid non-primary caregiver leave unreasonably withheld.

Yes. You continue to progress through the salary steps on your anniversary each year as usual.

Yes. You remain employed while on parental leave and so long as you return to work at the end of parental leave, are entitled to costs of training, APC, InPractice, college membership etc. (if you have maintained these) while on leave, as usual. You may, however, have to wait to be reimbursed for these until the end of your parental leave, so that the employer is sure you have returned to work.

Yes – if you are on parental leave you can stay a member of the RDA. If you choose to do so it is important to contact us at membership@nzrda.org.nz and let us know of your impending parental leave. You can put the payment of your subs on hold for up to a year whilst you are on leave but need to notify us when you will be returning to work.

When you return from parental leave you are entitled to resume work in the same or similar position that you had at the time you commenced parental leave. This means equivalent salary and designation in the same or close locality comparable with those of the position previously occupied. Annual salary increments continue to apply in the same way as if you had not taken parental leave (i.e. you continue to move up the salary scale).

Having been granted parental leave you will need to notify the employer in writing of your intention to return to work (or to resign) at least one month prior to parental leave expiring.