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"In the future, boss and employees will negotiate on an equal footing": Hubertus Heil
Photo: FILIP SINGER / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) wants to give as many employees as possible a legal right to work from home for at least 24 days a year.
As the "Bild am Sonntag" reports, Heil has completed its announced "Mobile Work Act".
Accordingly, it provides that an employer may only refuse a request for mobile work if there are understandable organizational or operational reasons for doing so.
"Wherever possible, all employees should be legally entitled to at least 24 days per year for mobile work," said Heil of "Bild am Sonntag".
"If both parents have a job in which mobile working is feasible, then, according to my suggestion, one parent can take turns working from home for one day every week. That makes family life much easier."
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Heil also justified his advance with the experience of the Corona period.
"The virus has taught us that far more mobile working is possible than we thought. Mobile working is not just something for young people from agencies who sit in cafés with laptops and latte macchiatos. Because mobile working has become part of the modern working world for some heard, but not yet made possible for many, it also needs a law. "
"Of course, a baker cannot bake bread rolls from home."
Hubertus Heil
The minister would like the 24 days to be understood as the lower limit.
Employees and employers could also agree on more home working in collective agreements or company agreements.
"All employees have the right to negotiate mobile work with their boss," says Heil.
"Of course, a baker cannot bake bread rolls from home."
Therefore, an employer can refuse the request if he has understandable reasons for doing so.
"In the future, boss and employee will negotiate on an equal footing."
Hubertus Heil
For employers, however, it is no longer possible to refuse mobile working on principle.
"In the future, the boss and employees will negotiate on an equal footing," said Heil.
In addition, the law stipulates that working hours in the home office must be digitally documented.
"Working from home shouldn't mean that you can't stop working. Even in the home office, work has to end at some point."
When Heil announced in April that it wanted to legally establish the right to work from home, the CSU criticized him for it.
"To create a right that everyone can go to the home office whenever they want is a deep intervention in the work processes of the company," said state group leader Alexander Dobrindt at the time.
"The right to work from home is therefore rejected by us."
The law must now give salvation to the ministerial vote.
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slü / dpa
