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…
It is almost like Merz is an idiot but Germans are too enamored by the smell of their own xenophobic, “superior” diarrhea from shitting their pants to see the obvious reality.
Merz has historically low approval.
Good! Will that be enough to keep Germany from fascism spiralling? I remain very skeptical it will.
Germany is less far down that road than other European countries. Being overly worried is fear mongering taking root.
The worrisome thing is necessary reforms not being done. And there being little chance of that changing. But same is true for e.g. France if we are being honest. And Belgium got a nationalist government. Austria had Kurz who did just what you are fearing in allying with the far right.
The difference between Germany and those other countries of course is Germany exterminated millions of jews, minorities and other “unwanted” in gas chambers while fighting a world war and German society largely sat and took it like cowards.
You have to understand how that changes how the rest of the world contextualizes Germany’s current “flirtation” with fascism… but hey I am from the US so I don’t claim to be on any high horse here.
But boy does THAT sound familiar
Current politics is very far removed from that historical context and forgets how popular those policies used to be all over the world. And using language like exterminate is dehumanizing.
Expecting Germans to be a fundamentally genocidal people is racist. And you, likely, aren’t even aware of the genocides that happen and are happening in the past 10 years. There are plenty.
I hear all these words and none of them change the fact that less than a hundred years ago Germany exterminated millions of jews, minorities and a multitude of other human beings too.
How dare you accuse me of dehumanization for calling it what Germans saw it as. I clearly did it to emphasize the brutality not dehumanize the victims, fool.
Get the hell out of here with your lazy whataboutism about Genocide, of all things you could have picked.
I consider your language insensitive as you should provide more context and condemnation when using such dehumanizing terms. I didn’t think you were intending to do so.
Ok sure, beating around the bush with Genocide is a bit of a touchy subject with the Genocide of Palestinians raging on with state support of both the US and Germany, supposedly for the better of jews… so ok but know that I do not use such serious words lightly or carelessly.
Human rights apply to all humans.
“German” is not a race, dimwit.
Trust me most people hate Merz as much as your people hate Trump. He is more of an establishment pet than a pedophile obviously, but both are the personification of fear that people live in and are too dumb to control themselves.
fuck me, Vote Green
I did. I will.
Maybe, but doesn’t this seem super high to you?
3.6 weeks?
We have 5 paid sick days here and 3 unpaid. I think I used 1 or 2 last year.
The average is always high, because long time sickness drags the statistics up.
It’s not 10 people having the flu for 3.6 weeks every year. It’s one person going down with stress or cancer for half a year without losing their employment.
Yeah just seems high with Italy being at .9. Germany has 4x higher sickness? Or just Italians lose their jobs? And Romania with .1 week.
https://www.datapulse.de/en/sick-leave-europe-comparison/
This goes into everything about it. In short, the sick statistics actually only shows which countries are good at reporting it. The countries with the best coverage of pay obviously also report it better.
Germany is straight in the middle of everything.
The most interesting thing to notice is Norway. They have the highest average of sick days. They’re probably not more sick than others, but because their sick days are covered 100% by the state, it’s in everyone’s interest to report it. And yet… despite of 19% of the workforce being sick on any given day… they’re also the most productive GDP/hour.
Hmm good point
Yeah Germany is in a good place and Germans are willingly sabotaging themselves because Germany is easy to manipulate when you tell Germans they are superior. That is my point.
Have you looked at any populist movement in the world? Anyone likes easy solutions and being told their often multiple fears/worries/problems have one definite source. That is the populist playbook and has happened again and again over hundreds of years, irrespective of actual systems of Government. I think that is something very human that can only be beaten with education, imo.
The question is education of what kind? Education only about machines and their practical applications of their force? Or education about the humanities and art and why they are more important than the machines?
Something The Magic Mountain captures in perfect tension.
Seems a bit high but on par with rest of Europe
Italy .9 week. Germany is 4x higher
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