cross-posted from: https://feddit.online/c/euro@feddit.online/p/1817064/germany-tightens-sick-leave-rules-medical-doctor-note-required-from-day-one-telephone-s
Germany’s Chancellor Merz:
We can no longer accept the extraordinarily high levels of sick leave in our companies.
We are abolishing sick leave by telephone and introducing the requirement to submit a medical certificate from the very first day of illness.
We know this is a tough decision. But we can no longer afford this competitive disadvantage caused by prolonged absences from work.
Here we see conservative politicians hard at work solving imaginary problems.
Meanwhile the planet is burning and oligarchs siphon off our remaining wealth, destroying the very foundations of our society. But we can’t let people have nice things!
Today it went through parliament for real.
thats a different, even worse law. This one will seriously destroi a lot of the german medical system. It’s already pretty much impossible to run a hospital without losing money, now hospitals get even less of it.
Oh shit sorry. And thanks for the correction. I guess the other thing isn’t through yet, then. All I can find is that the coalition agreed to it with each other.
The ither thing is oretty much just an official “we are thinking about it.” There isn’t even a draft for a law or anything for it and it’s so annoying that all the media report on it like it’s a done deal and it’s confusing a lot of people.
the beating will continue until
the beaten beat back
Reminds me of Eric Wildman, proponent of corporal punishment in schools in the 1940’s. He went to speak at a school, but the headmaster had set him up so when he got there the students jumped him and beat his ass with canes.
Headmaster, may I give you head? You deserve it! #nohomo
Great. Make yourself even less likable to the working class, by serving your billionaire masters. No wonder fucking AfD is winning by doing nothing these days.
It’s the same in the UK with pants on head regarded laws and rulings. If citizens do something on their own initiative and it makes the local council look bad they throw the book at them i.e. that one guy who cleaned trash out of a harbor after pleading for years for the local council to do it. Once he did it himself the council threw the book at him for “environmental impact” my fucking ass…
Its like Britain and Germany are in a race to see who can any % speed run Hitler 2.0 rising to power… They both seemingly loathe the working class.
People often vote against a party/candidate rather than for the opposition. Until we figure out how to get decent people interested in politics, this may simply be our reality.
What do you mean by “less likable”? There is nothing “less” anymore, he’s ground zero of likeable.
But well, apparently it’s the time of stupid leaders around the world…
Germany is cooked. 💀
The CDU adopts dumb policies like that, and then the AfD comes out with cruel crap like this.
The thought pattern is not new, and it is anything but harmless. The Soviet Union put dissidents into psychiatric institutions with the diagnosis of “creeping schizophrenia.” Whoever rejected the system could only be sick in this logic. Exactly this pattern was on the stage of a German Federal Party Congress on Saturday, friendly packaged as a healing offer.
Ah yes - it reminds of the Soviet Union, yes. Not anything closer to home. 😅
What I still don’t get is that the afd benefits from this. It will be much worse for the working class when they achieve their goals.
Afd lies and people believe their lies.
Absolutely but for people to recognize that, they need to be at least somewhat well informed and a huge number of people are fed by targeted disinformation campaigns and will therefore not see this
Same as in France I guess: the right tactic is to speak as few as possible while claiming you’re a workers party. Let the acting gov keep shooting itself in the foot repeatedly.
Oligarchs controlled medias will do the rest.
thanks to the utterly stupid brandmauer they can play the perfect opferrolle and never have to make difficult descisions.
Social services is an investment with positive ROI, you can’t afford to save in on it
Social services is not an investment. It’s a public service. We do it because we have humanity and dignity, not because of money.
Both.
People with money brains can be sold on an investment. They won’t want to do anything that they won’t get a return on. People with empathy don’t need to be sold on helping people.
If only it actually worked. I get the impression that making poor people’s lives worse is actually the point, and the capitalists don’t really care that much about their absolute amount of money. Or they’re just neck-deep in counterfactual propaganda about how business and economics works. Hell, why not both?
For some, yes. But those are the sociopaths and those are relatively few. The rest are fed propaganda but can be convinced.
While I wholeheartedly agree, that will never be a selling point to a capitalist.
We do it because it buys us social peace. Less criminality means better life.
This has never worked. This is very stupid.
Don’t forget the big middle finger this gives to doctors, who most likely have too much paperwork to do now.
My Dutch doctor would flat-out refuse. Something about patient doctor confidelity…
The employer never gets to see the diagnosis and is also forbidden from directly asking the employee. That won’t change in this reform either.
But the workload for doctors will skyrocket if employees with a common cold cannot simply call off from work without going to the doctor.
(Not to mention the fact that the doctor will then declare you sick for a week instead of people staying home for just 1-2 days)
Oh yeah! If the doc says one or two days (it’s a cold), but it lingers a bit, that person gets to come back to the doc on day 3. A smart doc will just write it for a week and tell you to rest up good.
Where is this assumption coming from that employers will know about any medical details? It’s just a note that says „Person shall rest until X. Signed, Dr“. This has always been the case and will continue to be so.
The change is mainly about WHEN employees will have to get this note and HOW they should get it.
Even that, a typical Dutch doctor just won’t do that. Probably because they know all too well what the effects would be, so confidentiality is a nice cover.
But the employer needs to know how long you are gone somehow… I don’t understand the issue here.
A doctor may not even confirm if a person is a patient of his/her, nor is he/she allowed to confirm, or deny, sickness of a patient. Privacy was an important thing before the internet took over. But some remnants remain. An employee can tell his employer “I am sick. I don’t know for how long. Deal with it”.
I don’t think it’s a big deal as long as they don’t see actual medical details, but I see your point. And if this works out then I’m all for it.
Though my point was that this specifically is not what the article is about.
We know this is a tough decision. But we can no longer afford this competitive disadvantage caused by prolonged absences from work.
The disadvantage:
Country Average Weeks/Days per Year Finland ~4.8 weeks (~24 days) France ~4.1 weeks (~20.5 days) Portugal ~4.0 weeks (~20 days) Germany ~3.9 weeks (~19-20 days) Belgium ~3.9 weeks (~19.5 days) Neo-liberalism: as long as you’re not aligned with the lowest pay, the longest working hours, the least time off, the least benefits, you’re suffering from “competitive diadvantage”, and you need to “fix it”.
Is this days taken or days available to take?
It is days taken, always. There is no illness days limit per year as is common in the USA. In Europe, if you’re ill, you’re ill, for as many days as you are ill.
Though at some point you’ll get put on some plan of the government and stop being a “burden” to the employer. At least, that’s in my country - I don’t think that this is necessarily aligned across the EU, let alone Europe.
Same here (Switzerland), via a compulsory (for the employer) insurance.
It’s about sick leave, so there’s no limit on “available” days. If you’re sick, you’re out.
In short: days taken.@No_Eponym @avidamoeba
You think people take less than is available & volunteer to work for free for the rest?I think any policy made on assumptions is poor policy. There are employers that offer unlimited sick days. How could that be if people always take the maximum amount of time off? We know people feel compelled to come to work while ill. Absenteeism is hard to measure and quantify, and if it is being driven by factors like environmental hazards or actual medical illness then simply restricting paid leave is unlikely to fix the productivity problem and may actually make it worse.
So, good policy should show a) how many days off people get b) how many they actually take c) how many can be shown to be due to medical issues (seriously ill people will seek medical attention, even in America, and that can be quantified). If these basic data are lacking, then the policy has about as much a chance of succeeding as throwing darts in the dark.
I think theres a misunderstanding here. In countries where the working class is treated a bit less like slaves, employers dont “offer sick leave”. If you are sick, you are entitled to missing work and your employer cant do shit about it, rightfully so.
Yep, I’m in Germany, my sick leave is unlimited with certain conditions (subject to change 🙄):
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Certificate only required if I’m out 4 consecutive days or longer
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Up to 6 weeks paid in full by the employer
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Indefinitely paid thereafter at 70% by insurance
Fuck Merz. How am I supposed to get a medical certificate from day 1 when my main doctor has a 1 week waiting list, my closest one is almost always booked out 3+ days in advance, and now no Telehealth? So now when I have a head cold, instead of resting and focusing on getting better so I can return to work before I need a certificate, I have to spend my morning searching for a doctor that will take on a new patient at short notice, then go and spread disease in the doctors office and on public transport? Great job.
Well now seeing as I have to find a doctor anyway I might as well make the most of it. What is usually 1-2 days is going to turn into 1-2 weeks. This is just going to put more strain on already full waiting rooms and I predict this will increase the average use Avid Amoeba posted above, thereby reducing the productivity Merz is so focused on. Fuuuuuuck this guy and everyone whose vote enabled him. My German citizenship can’t come soon enough.
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Thanks for the numbers, where do they come from btw?
But… but… you are looking at the wrong countries!!1!11 You are looking at (more or less) reasonable european countries, when you should be comparing with the countries Merz would like to compete with: USA, China, Japan, etc…
[/ironie]
@avidamoeba @Beep
And yet their overall hourly productivity is higher than a lot of countries with longer hours & less vacation.Plus Germans have a total of 1.6 billion hours of overtime a year, half of which goes illegally unpaid.
But sure, sick days are the real problem in our society…
So sick leave by video call??
never 😂
our companies
Is this policy limited to people who work for the government, or does it apply to everyone? Seems like a lot of extra work for the Dr. No one wants their co-worker to come in with food poisoning or a cold, gross.
Everyone.
I hate this passionately, for so many reasons.
They talk about how socialism breeds “nanny states”. How is this ultra conservative move not nannyism?
Did all of these fucking people go to school in the 1890’s?
Right so the problem here is that you suffer from this left-wing thinking that there should be consistency in words, actions, rules.
While conservatism is about having an in-group who the rules protect but does not bind, and an out-group who the rules bind but do not protect. There not being equality and consistency is the point.
I’m just lashing out at the blatant hypocrisy, but honestly, what is the point? What is that quote- they know they don’t make sense. They don’t have to. They’ll just swamp you with whatever because really, they just don’t give a shit and will take whatever they can from everyone at everyone’s expense.
Greed for power and resources, egoism, stupidity. They have a rather barbaric mindset.
I’m with you.
And, almost comically, the people who create all the wealth through honest work are firmly in the out-group, and not to be trusted.
Exactly right.
Hey doc I have a cold. I’m also really burned out from work so it wouldn’t hurt if you required me 2 weeks off paid that my employer just has to accept.
Doctors note mandate suddenly and inexplicably reverts
No, the next step is that sick leave is not paid anymore. So that you have to work sick or else you are losing money.
You mean like the US?
Probably. It seems the CDU is very interested in how the US is handling everything.
I have to use my vacation time as sick time if I’m sick so I don’t call out sick anymore.
Move to a country where workers arent slaves
Statistically speaking, almost no one has that kind of privilege.
Crazy. In the Netherlands the employer is not even allowed to ask what disease you have. If they want to know if your sick leave is legit they have to get an independent doctor involved.
Yes it’s easy to abuse the system but hear me out, what if, the employer is nice to it’s employees? They’d be unlikely to abuse sick leave.
Same in Germany, the doctor does not say why, just that there is an inability to work due to illness. On top of that it is illegal for the employer to even ask.
Lots do ask, of course.
Well, yes. But the Betriebsarzt will now have access to your ePA and through this to your full health history.
Well, yes, but you don’t have to have an ePA
Only if you have an ePA. Which anyone with any understanding of privacy will have rejected
The certificate doesn’t say why one is sick, and the employer make not ask.
Still, requiring at first day is dumb on sooo many levels…
IIRC this flawed arrangement is in common with Japan, and often leads to sick notes made for days or more just to make sure the patient doesn’t have to go get one sick leave note per day, meaning unexpected vacations, commonly.
So already knowing how that works, is this just performative politics by Merz?
This is absolutely how it will play out. Until now I took 1 or 2 sick days a year, I dont really get sick often. From now on, I will make sure my doctor prescribes 2 weeks of rest per occasion.
Japan may be a good comparison on the rule side of things, but culturally how sick leave is taken, I am not sure.
On the one hand people in Japan seem to be more concerned about not getting others (or themselves) sick, seeing as they constantly wear face masks (already pre-pandemic), on the other hand the work culture seems more cut-throat so they may have more pressure to come in even while sick, not sure.
It’s the fun part of using doctors as truancy police - they have no reason not to just recommend two weeks off for everyone who walks through the door. Because honestly most people could use it.
He’s just helping the commoners. He’s such a sweet gentleman!
