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.
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
Worth noting that there already are many employers in Germany who demand a notice from the doctor (and not one via telephone) from day one. In fact, I’ve never had one that does not, both public and private.
It’s still stupid to codify this idiocy into law for everyone.
And who is supposed to deliver the note from the doctor to the employer? The sick person? What if they’re contagious?
If it were me, I’d cough all over the note before handing it directly to the bossman
It’s transmitted electronically these days.
In the past, you could just hand it in later once you were healthy or send it by mail.
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?
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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…
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just go back to Russia, troll
Shut the duck up.
Greetz, the Netherlands
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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.
Piece of dog shit fascist
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.
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.
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. 😅
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.
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…
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.
