Child Care Leave: Get Free Advice!

Questioner

Hi, My daughter will soon have to have surgery on her tonsils. I would like to take care leave for this, but according to my employer I am not entitled to it. I want to take 3 days of care leave for this. (My partner will take the other 2 days off). I know that I am not allowed to count the day of the operation itself and that also falls on my day off. Now I don't get care leave for this because my employer thinks that the operation does not fall under the conditions of care leave and that some things can be planned. I know this in advance and my child is not sick now. Care leave is for the cases that my child is (long-term) sick and that he/she needs care that no one else can do. This standard operation, which of course causes her discomfort, is not mentioned as an illness. Then you have to think of completely different things. It would be about life-threatening diseases. And someone else would be able to take care of my sick child. Is what my employer says about this. We do not work with a collective labor agreement. And my work can certainly miss me for a day. I also called the government and they say I should get it. I would be pleased to receive your advice on this matter. Greetings

Lawyer

This comes from a ruling on short-term care leave from 2008, I have not been able to find others. In fact, it says that you should try to schedule the expected necessary care in another way, i.e. by a third party. In the case of an emergency operation, it is different. From the Explanatory Memorandum on the Waz (parliamentary documents 1900-2000, no. 17207,3) it follows that short-term care leave is intended to enable employees to provide care to a child or partner living at home for a short period of time. This necessity, as can be read, concerns not only the need for care of the family member concerned, but also the circumstance that the care must be provided by the employee concerned and cannot be provided in any other way. The legislator assumes that the employer and employee weigh their mutual interests against each other.