Will Germany stay in the home office over the summer?
Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz has a clear opinion.
Meanwhile, the Greens are presenting a “future plan”.
Berlin - The corona incidences * are falling - and more and more pandemic measures are being eliminated.
Sometimes more contacts are possible again, tests and appointment bookings are no longer necessary everywhere.
This also arouses further desires: The Federal Association of German Industry has called for the home office obligation and the corona test obligation in companies to be lifted - also in view of vaccination progress.
Olaf Scholz: The home office requirement will not be lifted by the end of June
However, Federal Finance Minister and SPD candidate for Chancellor Olaf Scholz * has a clear opinion on this: He rejects an early lifting of the obligation to work from home. The Vice Chancellor insists that work in the home office should remain the rule until the end of June. “Now we mustn't get careless. The virus has not yet been defeated. That is why I think it is absolutely right to maintain the obligation to work from home, as agreed, ”Scholz told
Bild am Sonntag
. The current regulation would expire according to plan on June 30 without a further extension.
According to the Infection Protection Act, the current obligation to work from home stipulates that work at home is the rule for all employees who work in the office.
The companies must therefore enable home office if there are no compelling reasons against it - and the employees must also accept this.
Scholz received criticism for his view from FDP parliamentary deputy Michael Theurer: "Whoever opens beer gardens correctly, must not stick to the home office obligation," he said according to AFP.
Scholz's position seems "downright anachronistic".
Greens demand: Home office duty should become the right to work from home
From the ranks of the Greens *, on the other hand, parliamentary group leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt presented a three-point plan for modernizing the world of work after the corona pandemic. The core requirement in the paper from which the newspapers of the
Funke media group
quote is the conversion of the home office obligation into a right to work from home. In addition, Göring-Eckardt suggests helping companies with digitization, for example with investment grants, and strengthening the infrastructure in rural areas in order to create more open shared offices (coworking spaces).
"The home office obligation introduced to protect employees in the pandemic must expire if the pandemic situation continues to ease," says the report, according to the concept. And further: "A modern world of work should include a right to self-determined, mobile working for suitable activities, whereby the use is always voluntary and left to the employees."
Göring-Eckardt told the Funke newspapers: “The federal government has no recipes for a modern world of work. Simply wanting to turn everything back to the status quo after the crisis instead of building on the experiences of employees and companies is lacking in ideas, powerless and backward. In order to make the transition to the post-Corona era, a future
offensive
for the world of work is needed. ”
(Dpa / jh) * tz.de and merkur.de are offers from IPPEN.Media