The new Corona measures have further severely restricted public life.
Germans are still allowed to take buses and trains to the office every day and meet colleagues there - although a survey by the Robert Koch Institute in August showed that offices are the third most common place of mass outbreaks after private apartments and nursing homes.
However, the workplace only plays a subordinate role in the shutdown rules that apply until the end of January.
The Greens are now pushing for more infection protection in offices and are accusing the federal government of not doing enough to promote the home office.
"Above all, open-plan offices are risk areas," said parliamentary group leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt to the newspapers of the Funke media group.
Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) must therefore send "a clear signal to inconsiderate employers."
The previous “half-hearted request” by the federal government to employers to enable home office is not enough.
Companies that refused to work at home for their employees without an urgent reason violated the duty of care and occupational safety and risked a fine.
"It is extremely dangerous that the federal government does not dare to do more to prevent infections in the workplace," said Göring-Eckardt.
It should not be left to the employees to "laboriously fight for" their right to work from home.
Nothing "romantic" about the home office
The SPD rejected the criticism and reiterated its plan for a right to mobile working.
Many people did not experience the home office as something romantic in the first shutdown, says Labor Minister Heil to SPIEGEL, but rather as an "unplanned large-scale experiment".
In addition, it is difficult for many parents in particular to reconcile work and childcare at home.
Heil had presented a draft law on the right to work from home last year, but the Union has so far rejected this.
The minister said the ideological blockades were too great.
With the planned law for mobile working, which is currently being coordinated by departments, Heil wants to at least "legally back up" the employees: with a binding right to a home working agreement and a clause that guarantees the separation of work and private life.
The deputy SPD parliamentary group leader Katja Mast also rejected the Greens' criticism.
The SPD has been taking a clear stance since the beginning of the pandemic, she told the AFP news agency: "We want a right to mobile working as quickly as possible." In contrast, there is no initiative from the green-led Baden-Württemberg.
"I wonder whether the Greens are not listening properly or are still thinking about the Christmas break," Mast criticized Göring-Eckardt's remarks.
Icon: The mirror
mrc / cte / AFP