The following overview of degrees of kinship has been drawn up in order to determine whether an employee may be granted special leave to attend the marriage or funeral of a blood relative or in-law and/or to determine the number of days of special leave granted.
Direct blood relatives
The term blood relative refers to those in a direct line of descent (e.g. son or father) or in branching lines of descent (e.g. brother and sister).
Kinship by marriage
Kinship by marriage refers to the relationship between one spouse and the blood relatives of the other spouse (e.g. the sister/brother of your spouse is an in-law: sister-in-law and brother-in-law respectively). See Article 1.4 paragraph 6 of the Collective Labour Agreement for the equivalent of a spouse.
Please note: Since spouses are not blood relatives of one other, there is no relationship between the spouses of two blood relatives.
Kinship determination
The degree of kinship is determined by the ancestor or common ancestor. The degree of kinship for direct blood relatives is determined by the number of births that separate relatives from one another (parent - child, 1st degree of kinship; grandparent - grandchild, 2nd degree of kinship). The degree of kinship for indirect blood relatives is determined by the number of births that separate the common ancestor and his or her descendants (aunt – niece, 3rd degree of kinship; cousins, 4th degree of kinship). The degree of kinship by marriage is calculated in the same manner: the grandmother of one spouse is a 2nd degree relative of the other spouse.
For example
An aunt of employee A is deceased. To determine the degree of kinship, the exact family relationship between the employee and the aunt can be calculated as follows. The deceased aunt is officially a great-aunt of A, or a direct aunt of A's mother; A's grandmother and the deceased aunt were sisters. In this case, the common ancestors are the great-grandparents of A. When calculating A’s degree of kinship through his or her great-grandparents, the deceased (great) aunt is a relative in the 4th degree. In the event of her death, A is therefore entitled to one day special leave.