It’s seven o’clock in the morning, your child has a fever, the nursery won’t accept him as he’s ill, and you have to be at work by nine. In Spain, many people would have taken the day off or used a day’s holiday without realising they had another option. In Switzerland, there is a specific right for this situation. It’s not a favour from your boss. It’s a right.
Article 36 of the Federal Labour Act (LTr) stipulates that an employee may be absent from work due to urgent personal or family obligations that cannot be planned in advance. In practice, this includes staying at home to look after a sick child when no one else is available to do so. The key lies in that last part: when no one else is available. If the other parent also works and cannot stay at home, and if there are no grandparents or other relatives who can take over, the absence is justified and the employer is obliged to continue paying the employee’s wages during that time.
The period guaranteed by law is typically one to three days per bout of illness. Some sectoral collective agreements (CCTs) extend this to up to ten days per year for these specific situations. Importantly, this absence is not deducted from your annual leave or your own sick leave. It is a separate category. Your employer cannot force you to use your annual leave for this purpose.
In practice, many parents are unaware that this right exists and end up taking days off or calling in ‘sick’ themselves so as not to make life difficult for their boss. If you find yourself in this situation, the sensible thing to do is to give as much notice as possible and explain the situation calmly, without citing the relevant section of the law as if it were a battle. But the right is there, and if you have any doubts, you can check with your local employment office or your trade union.