Compulsory medical certificate from the first day of illness: CDU employee wing criticizes the planned reform of sick leave
The workers’ wing CDU advocates reconsidering sick leave from day one. “It is annoying that a good overall package with the potential to make progress in this country is now being buried in the public debate under the debates about the AU on the first day,” said CDA boss Dennis Radtke Mirror.
“Perhaps one should reconsider this point, also in the course of the decisions on health care reform,” said Radtke. The political value of the dispute does not seem to bear any healthy relationship to the supposed improvements. “Get off your ass, pull yourself together, and focus on what’s really important: How do we achieve growth? And how do we do that without endangering social peace in the country?” says Radtke.
Criticism also from the SPD
According to the report, the Social Democratic parliamentary group also expressed a desire to review the decision. Overall, the coalition committee’s decision is a “strong signal,” said health policy spokesman Christos Pantazis Mirror.
It is all the more regrettable that this overall impression is overshadowed by a single, ideologically motivated sentence about sick leave, said the SPD politician. This regulation follows a logic of mistrust towards employees and doctors and carries the risk that in the end there will hardly be any discussion of “the many good contents of the resolution”.
“Will fuck people up badly”
Juso boss Philipp Türmer also criticized the coalition decision. “The abolition of telephone sick leave and AU from day one will really screw people over,” said Türmer Mirror. “Understandable if you have to drag yourself into the waiting room for a day or two with a fever.”
The coalition committee has decided that a certificate of incapacity for work must be submitted from the first day of illness. So far, a medical certificate is only required from the fourth day. The possibility of making sick notes over the telephone should also be abolished.
At the same time, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU), among others, affirmed that people still do not have to go to the doctor on the first day of illness. How exactly the new regulation will be implemented remains unclear.