Germany Tightens Sick Leave Rules: Medical Doctor Note Required From Day One, Telephone Sick Leave Ended
cross-posted from: https://feddit.online/c/[email protected]/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.
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118 replies
is this the step where Germany reduces bureaucracy? or is it coming later
This will backfire.
Before I retired, I got put on what my employer called a "sick leave letter" which means they thought I was abusing sick leave. Which was ridiculous, I had used only about 20% of the sick leave I had earned during my career and had a huge bank of time, but they said they thought there was "a pattern" because it was often in conjunction with my weekend. This sick leave letter required a doctor's note every time, instead of only for prolonged absences.
You know what doctors don't tell you? They don't tell you to "suck it up and get back to work as soon as you can drag yourself in", which was my M.O.. You know what they do tell you? They do tell you to take at least a week off, two if you can.
As I said, I had a huge bank of time. After two times where 1-2 days became two weeks, which I gladly took and turned into vacations, I started asking if they really wanted me to go to a doctor (which involved me spending about an hour going down the road to urgent care and spending a $20 copay to get a note for two weeks) or if I could just take a day or two. They, smartly, told me not to bother, which I required in writing. The sick leave letter expired eventually and I never heard any bullshit again.
TL;DR: Doctors tell you to take more time off than most people take on their own.
Fucking dickass fascist.
"Good morning, oh no I'm vomiting my guts up, can barely go 20 minutes without explosive diarrhea, and I'm bed-ridden from excruciating abdominal pain. Better get to the doctor so I don't have to go to work today."
What the fuck kind of hellhole is this? The billionaires are rich enough already.
Competitive advantage my ass.
I mean, that's how it's been in Italy forever. Some doctors are willing to diagnose you over the phone, but they risk legal repercussions, so either they come visit you at home when their office visiting hours are over, or you drag yourself to their office, potentially infecting a lot people.
That sucks
Good point, but such a disgustingly tone deaf statement of calling current day Germany fascist is not only wrong but completely unnecessary.
Let me ask you something: is Merz pandering to the AfD?
I didn't call Germany fascist. I called Merz a fascist.
So is he pandering to the AfD and the oligarch class, or no?
Merz is a she now? I didn't realize he transitioned...
And the reason I'm calling AfD fascist is because the German people I met in Germany all agreed that AfD is fascist. You want me to sit my american ass down, sure, I will. But let's ask some Germans it AfD are fascists and see what they say 🤔 hmmmm...
just go back to Russia, troll
Shut the duck up.
Greetz, the Netherlands
Agreed.
Regards, the Netherlands; for a few years part of the German Reich
Well this is a step backwards.
Small step backwards for Germany, but a giant leap forward for contagious diseases.
That's the spirit!!
Did influenza write this legislation?
If you're genuinely having an issue with a sick workforce then you build better healthcare and preventative care services.
Here we see conservative politicians hard at work solving imaginary problems.
Meanwhile the planet is burning and oligarchs are siphoning off our remaining wealth, destroying the very foundations of our society. But we can't let people have nice things!
I'm confused by this. I've never worked at a business that required (or was even interested in) a doctor's note when I was sick.
Why would I go to the doctor if I have any of the most common causes of sick days, like cold, flu, stomach upset, etc? They're not going to be able to do anything about it except take my temperature, confirm my described symptoms, and recommend fluids and rest. Meanwhile if I'm feeling too ill to go to work I'm going to feel too ill to go to the doctor, and being forced to go to the doctor instead of resting at home is only going to exacerbate the condition and potentially spread whatever I have to other patients at the doctor's office and on public transit (or do you want me behind the wheel in my condition?). Do y'all really have so much excess medical capacity that having people take up doctor time just for them to confirm "yup, sick" isn't a problem?
What happens when a company is like "this is dumb, we're not 'requiring' shit"? How is this even enforceable? Like, we all recognize this is overreach, but just from a practicality point of view how is any of this proposal feasible?
Do you continue to get paid when you're sick? If no, the company is less likely to care about why they stop paying you until you show up again.
Even for work where sick days are unpaid, many businesses (especially small ones) are going to suffer having a worker missing. After all, workers are supposed to generate more revenue than their salary costs, so the excess value is still being lost when someone calls out sick.
We have no "sick days". You're sick, you get paid. After six weeks in a row, health insurance takes over and you still get 70% of your usual wage.
That's okay. A lot of people will needlessy suffer and instead of being sick for just a day or two, my doctor will probably give me a note for a whole week or longer. This will certainly help to be on the job more often. Brilliant. /s
Yeah totally. If I have to pay to see a doctor to get a sick note for a day off, I may as well get a whole week off.
My Dr will give me medical certs if I just say I'm tired and need some time off. Boom, 2 weeks off, no worries. The medical cert just says "Diagnosis: Medical Condition"
We could take the required money from the rich... bwhahahahaha! Of course not, let's make the plebs work while sick so that they can sicken everyone at the office!
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.
Competitive disadvantage in comparison to what? How is this gonna improve productivity?
I haven't followed German politics in many years and damn, is this concerning.
German conservatives are dumb shits, always were. And the current chancellor used to be a high-ranking employee of Black Rock. It's a miracle that he somehow seems genuinely opposed to forming a coalition with the popular rightwing extremist party, though he sure loves using their talking points.
Krank zur Arbeit - Chef FM
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.
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.
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.
Afd lies and people believe their lies.
thanks to the utterly stupid brandmauer they can play the perfect opferrolle and never have to make difficult descisions.
Germany is cooked. 💀
The CDU adopts dumb policies like that, and then the AfD comes out with cruel crap like this.
https://respublica.media/hocke-auf-dem-afd-parteitag-wir-mussen-einen-grossen-teil-der-nation-auf-die-couch-legen-und-therapieren/
Ah yes - it reminds of the Soviet Union, yes. Not anything closer to home. 😅
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...
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.
It‘s just really irrational on so many levels but that‘s the current German government for you.
German voters: well, voting for the right hasn't worked - they haven't done anything for the common people. We should try voting for nazis next.
Left/Green: hi there I have many things I want to improve for the common people!
German voters: go fuck yourself.
Well they are appearing to do something. Its an emotional appeal to the people not to vote just to change anything as it appeals to the crowd that thinks that at this point change at any cost is the way forward. They might even not vote for the AFD. Not that I think that's a winning strategy, but they compete with xenophobia being acceptable again which is an almost laughably hard to defeat strategy as it plays into a factor present in all humans.
The disadvantage:
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]
Thanks for the numbers, where do they come from btw?
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".
@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…
Is this days taken or days available to take?
It's about sick leave, so there's no limit on "available" days. If you're sick, you're out.
In short: days taken.
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.
@No_Eponym @avidamoeba
You think people take less than is available & volunteer to work for free for the rest?
That's definitely a thing, though, even in Germany. Way too many employers are complete idiots in this topic, like why would you want someone with a contagious disease to come to work? It's technically not legal to fire or not promote an employee or not extend their contract because of that, but good luck proving it.
Plus unpaid overtime is demonstrably a thing, too.
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 🙄):
Certificate only required if I’m out 4 consecutive days or longer
Up to 6 weeks paid in full by the employer
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
What the fuck, is Germany grade school?
Does he get to check your clothes before you go out too?
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.
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....
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.
Well, yes. But the Betriebsarzt will now have access to your ePA and through this to your full health history.
Only if you have an ePA. Which anyone with any understanding of privacy will have rejected
Well, yes, but you don't have to have an ePA
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.
As an American, I’m very sorry.
Answering the question why Merz is the least popular chancellor in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.
This is not the only answer to that question…
This has never worked. This is very stupid.
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
In Germany, we say "Merz leck Eier".
All of this could be solved by checking Merz’s internet history and imprisoning him
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.
IDK. Most working class people can't be convinced to join a union or vote left of center, and that seems way more obvious than convincing managers to give up power.
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.
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.
Labour will be more disciplined until Capital's profits go up!
So sick leave by video call??
never 😂
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.