German chancellor Friedrich Merz announced sweeping tax, pension and labour reforms today, including that workers will now be required to get a medical certificate saying they’re too unwell to work from the first day of sick leave.
Workers in Germany used to be able to take up to three sick days without seeing a doctor and could call a doctor for a one-week sick leave letter without an in-person appointment.
Under the new reforms, both options are now banned.
In a speech, Merz flagged “exorbitant levels of sick leave in companies following the pandemic” and said: “We are…
German workers already have generous holidays, plus a plethora of EU and German holidays, and is anyone seriously sick 3.6 weeks a year? almost a month?? That sounds like a national health crisis.
What do vacations have to do with sick days?
In US , workers use mandated sick days in place of pathetic vacation days and holidays.
When the average worker is taking a month of sick days a year, they are just taking more vacation days, when they already have the longest vacation schedules in the world.
That sounds an American problem. In any civilized country vacation days are vacation days. Sick days are sick days. Despite conservatives thin foil hat BS people are not taking sick days to go to Maiorca.