Sick leave and family responsibility leave for domestic workers

Sooner or later your domestic worker will be ill, or will have a sick child or a death in the family. The law sets out exactly how much paid time off applies in each case. Getting it wrong is one of the most common reasons a domestic employment dispute ends up at the CCMA.

Which rules apply to a domestic worker

Domestic workers are covered by the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA) and by Sectoral Determination 7, which sets the specific conditions for the domestic worker sector. Where the two differ, the sectoral determination is the one written for your situation. For sick leave they say the same thing. For family responsibility leave they do not, as explained below.

Sick leave: the three-year cycle

• Cycle: sick leave runs in cycles of 36 months, counted from the day your employee started.
• Entitlement: in each cycle, paid sick leave equal to the days normally worked in six weeks. Five days a week means 30 days; three days a week means 18 days.
• First six months: one paid sick day for every 26 days worked. Days taken in this period come off the full cycle entitlement.
• Pay: a sick day is paid at the wage your employee would normally have earned that day, on the usual pay day.
• No carry-over and no pay-out: unused sick leave falls away at the end of the cycle and is not paid when the job ends.

A worked example at the minimum wage

Take an employee on the national minimum wage of R30.23 an hour, working five days and 45 hours a week, so about R5,894.85 a month. After 18 months, four sick days have been taken in this cycle:

• Sick leave in the cycle: 6 weeks x 5 days = 30 days
• Left: 30 - 4 = 26 days
• One sick day pays: R5,894.85 x 3 / 13 / 5 = R272.07
• The 26 days left are worth R7,073.82 - but only if your employee is actually sick. They are never paid out.

Put in your own employee's days, months and wage. The calculator starts at the example above:

Calculator by CalcSA - open the sick leave calculator if it does not load.

When you can ask for a medical certificate

• When your employee is off sick for more than two days in a row.
• When your employee is off sick on more than two occasions in eight weeks.
• Outside those two cases you may not refuse to pay a sick day only because there is no certificate.
• If no valid certificate is produced when you are entitled to one, you need not pay the sick day.

If your employee lives on your property and cannot easily reach a doctor, the rules allow some flexibility. Agree in advance how a certificate will be handled, and put it in the contract.

Sick leave runs out: what then

• Extra days off are unpaid, or taken from annual leave if you both agree.
• Do not dismiss for illness without following a fair incapacity process. That is a separate and slower route.
• Your employee may be able to claim the UIF illness benefit for a long illness, provided you have registered and paid UIF.

Family responsibility leave: five days a year

• Who qualifies: employed by you for longer than four months, and working at least four days a week for you.
• How much: Sectoral Determination 7 gives a domestic worker five days' paid leave in every 12 months of employment. The general BCEA rule for other employees is three days.
• What it is for: when your employee's child is sick, or on the death of a spouse or life partner, parent, adoptive parent, grandparent, child, adopted child, grandchild or sibling.
• Proof: you may ask for reasonable proof, such as a death notice, before paying.
• No carry-over: unused days lapse at the end of the year.

Check how many family responsibility days your employee has left. The calculator is set to domestic worker (five days):

Calculator by CalcSA - open the family responsibility leave calculator if it does not load. If it shows three days, choose "domestic worker (SD7)" under Type of work.

Make it easy

• Write sick leave, certificates and family responsibility leave into the employment contract so there is no argument later.
• Show paid sick days on the payslip for that month, so both of you can see what was used.
• Keep a simple record of every day taken, with the reason. The Act expects you to keep records for three years.
• For the wider picture, see hours, leave and contract rules and what must be on a payslip.

Common mistakes

• Counting sick leave per year. It is per three-year cycle, not 10 days a year.
• Paying out unused sick leave - or expecting it to be paid out. Neither is required.
• Using the three-day rule for family responsibility leave. A domestic worker gets five.
• Docking pay for one sick day without a certificate when neither of the certificate conditions applied.

General information, not legal advice. Every figure we use is on the rates page with its source.