A reader asks: I work on the basis of summarised working time, so I can take child leave at weekends as well. I want to take child leave on Saturday and Sunday. When I applied for leave, the schedule had not yet been prepared. How many hours will be deducted from the standard working time if the child leave is 10 consecutive days, which includes four days of the weekend?
Vladimir Logatšev, lead counselling lawyer at the Labour Inspectorate responds:
The purpose of child leave is to give the employee additional time off work to spend with their child. In the case of summarised working time, the employee may work on all calendar days.
If the employee takes child leave, their working time in the calculation period must be reduced by the time the employee was not working due to child leave. If the employee’s schedule has been confirmed, the scheduled hours must be deducted from their planned working time. For example, if the employee takes child leave on Saturday when they were scheduled for a 24-hour shift, their planned working time will be reduced by 24 hours.
If the schedule has not been approved and the employee wants to take child leave, their working time is reduced by eight hours for each day of child leave, regardless of whether the day of child leave is on a business day or at the weekend. Since employees working on the basis of a schedule may work on all weekdays and child leave is granted in working days, the planned working time must be adjusted accordingly.
Example: An employee works full time, i.e. an estimated eight hours a day and 40 hours over a seven-day period. The employee is planning to take child leave from 3 March 2023 to 12 March 2023 (10 calendar days). Their standard working time will be reduced by 8 hours per each planned child leave day. Therefore, their standard working time will be reduced by 80 hours.
This ensures that the approach to daily and summarised working time is as clear and similar as possible. In addition, it ensures that the employee does not have to make up the hours due to taking child leave, which fulfils the purpose of child leave – to give employees additional time off work to spend with their child. If the standard working time was not reduced when child leave is scheduled at the weekend, the employee would have to work the standard hours despite having taken child leave. However, this would not align with the purpose of child leave.
The response has been coordinated with the Ministry of Social Affairs.
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