The German Minister of Labor announces a law that will guarantee the right to work remotely 24 days a year. “Where possible”.
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Labor Minister Hubertus Heil wants to facilitate remote work for employees and guarantee them the right to 24 days of such work a year. The coronavirus pandemic has shown that “mobile work is possible more than we thought,” said the Social Democrat in an interview with “Bild am Sonntag”. The planned right to work from home should be granted to employees “where possible,” he added.
As announced by the Minister of Labor, 24 days should be the minimum right. In addition, employees and employers can agree individual terms for working from home in collective agreements. “All employees will have the right to negotiate with their boss about mobile working,” Heil said.
If the parents have a profession in which mobile work is possible, each parent can work one day a week from home in turns, the minister suggests. “It would make family life much easier,” he added.
At the same time, the head of the labor ministry pointed to the limitations of this type of work: “Of course, a baker cannot bake rolls from home” – he said. “Therefore, an employer can reject an application for remote work if he has understandable organizational or company-related reasons for doing so.” The Act will no longer allow an employer to refuse to work from home in principle.
The Christian Democratic parties, forming the government in Berlin with the SPD, do not support the idea of the Social Democratic minister. – There is no real right to this type of work – said Peter Weiss, labor and social affairs expert in the CDU / CSU parliamentary club. He warned against “splitting workers into two groups – those who can do their work from home and those who can’t. It should be more obvious in the future that employers will seriously consider wanting to work remotely,” he added.
In turn, the chairman of the German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB), Rainer Hoffmann, criticized the minister’s plans as insufficient. However, he welcomed plans to implement a law that would also protect employees.
Beate Mueller-Gemmeke, a labor market expert from the Green party, also demands more. According to her, employees must be able to work remotely one or two days a week – and on a regular basis, so that it is binding on everyone.
The party “Left” draws attention to the new burdens on workers. “Clear protection rules are needed to keep working from home from becoming an overtime trap,” said job expert Jessica Tatti.
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To avoid this, Heil wants to include preventive measures in the law. The bill stipulates that working hours in the home office would have to be digitally documented. “Remote work must not give the impression that it is endless. Even working from home must end sometime,” said Hubertus Heil.
FDP labor market expert Johannes Vogel has requested that the planned act be accompanied by measures to cut red tape. As he said, the “mini-proposal” of the head of the labor ministry leaves many questions unanswered. – Will the bureaucracy that forces companies to control home desks today be reduced? Vogel asked. The liberal politician appealed to the minister of labor for a fundamental modernization of the law on working time.
(AFP / dom), Polish Editorial Board of Deutsche Welle
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