Father's (partner's) rights for time off work at birth

I've just been looking this up for a friend and thought that it might be useful to others. We searched hard for the law about how many days a partner is entitled to take off around the birth of their baby and couldn't find anything on the AK or WKÖ websites. It turns out that the rules are defined by your Kollektivvertrag (KV, collective agreement).

There is a collection of Austrian collective agreements here: https://www.kollektivvertrag.at/

One problem we faced was simply with the German language. It turns out that searching for "Geburt" won't get you very far! Try "den Tag der Entbindung" (delivery day) )or "Niederkunft" (childbirth).

Example

In this case the person wanted to know whether he could have the day off when his partner comes home from hospital and his collective agreement says that he is entitled to two days off: one for the day of the birth (non-transferable so if the baby is born on a Sunday you lose it), and one other day. But this really does vary from contract to contract. I also looked up the retail KV (section G paragraph 1.7) and they only get one day off while cable car 🚡workers get 2 unspecified days off (§11 2. j) which is obviously good to know!

Another excellent source of information is your company's Betriebsrat (Works Council) if there is one. You should know who your representative(s) is on it, and if not, ask around at work.

Sources and references

• Kollektivvertrag.at

• Wirtschaftskammer: https://www.wko.at/arbeitsrecht/persoenliche-dienstverhinderungsgruende