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…
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.
“German” is not a race, dimwit.
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.
I didn’t defend the genocide on the Palestinians. To be fair, I do believe it gets disproportionate media attention compared to other, ongoing genocides with much higher death tolls and suffering. In particular on the left. But this does not mean you should attack me out of the blue.