The district office wants to stick to the home office rule in the future.
The mayor of Garching does not like that.
He complains about a file jam in the district authority.
District
- The home office has proven itself in the district office during the pandemic.
District Administrator Christoph Göbel (CSU) wants to stick to variable working hours until the post-Corona era.
This model does not appeal to every head of administration.
Mayor Dietmar Gruchmann (SPD) complains about a file jam in the Garching town hall.
As a supervisory authority, the district office approves political decisions from Garching.
As Gruchmann informs the Munich Mercury, there have been increasing delays.
In the case of building applications in particular, a high degree of patience would be required of the applicant.
"As an employer, I have to make sure that the shop is running."
A building application must be approved within three months. In Garching, efforts are therefore made to deal with applications quickly in the city council, explains Gruchmann. Then off to supervision in the district office. "Then the stuff flickers around", Gruchmann says annoyed. The reason? Clerk in home office. "Should there still be any questions ...", says Garching's mayor tellingly. He is not happy. A third of the approximately 1700 employees of the district office are currently working from home. "We have the impression that communication in the office is hampered by this."
A third of 1700 - “that's a lot,” says Gruchmann.
The statutory right to work from home, the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance, expired on June 30th.
The employer's discretion applies.
For Garching's mayor, it is clear that the district is holding up problems unnecessarily.
Not a model for Garching, he thinks: “As an employer, I have to make sure that the shop is running.” Constantly calling the district office to keep things going is not helpful.
District Administrator: Home office helps to equalize traffic
District Administrator Göbel, on the other hand, wants to anchor home office permanently in the district office. It would make it easier to combine family and work. The workplace is more accessible for the disabled. “Working from home also helps to straighten out rush hour traffic,” explains Göbel. In the not too distant future, he is convinced that variable working hours will be synonymous with attractive workplaces.
Göbel does not deny that certain work in the district office benefits from the personal presence of the clerk, that presence is necessary. For example, work processes that cannot be digitized or only incompletely digitized, that cannot be postponed, where contact with the citizen is evident. The driver's license office comes to mind, the immigration office, social department or job center. Even if the citizen is urged to avoid personal contact due to the coronavirus. However, the district administrator contradicts allegations from Garching: In the digital age it is no problem to link to the workplace and the files at any time. Göbel: "If someone cannot be reached, it has nothing to do with home office."
In an interview with Münchner Merkur, the entrepreneur and head of the regional committee of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Christoph Leicher, already expressed the view at the beginning of the year that working conditions have changed forever.
Leicher ruled out a return to classic office work.
On the other hand, the German Federation of Trade Unions in Bavaria warns against abuse by home office, against unpaid overtime, for example, and calls for a legal framework.
We provide information on all developments relating to the coronavirus in our news ticker. You can find more news from the Munich district here.