The Right to Work From Home Could Be Guaranteed By Law in Germany (apnews.com) 98
"Germany's labor minister wants to enshrine into law the right to work from home if it is feasible to do so, even after the coronavirus pandemic subsides," reports the Associated Press:
Labor Minister Hubertus Heil told Sunday's edition of the Bild am Sonntag newspaper that he aims to put forward such legislation this fall. He said initial estimates suggest the proportion of the work force working from home has risen from 12% to 25% during the virus crisis, to around 8 million people. "Everyone who wants to and whose job allows it should be able to work in a home office, even when the corona pandemic is over," Heil was quoted as saying. "We are learning in the pandemic how much work can be done from home these days."
Heil stressed that "we want to enable more home working, but not force it." He said people could choose to switch entirely to working from home, or do so for only one or two days per week.
The labor minister had already been calling for a right to work at home back in December, the article notes.
Heil stressed that "we want to enable more home working, but not force it." He said people could choose to switch entirely to working from home, or do so for only one or two days per week.
The labor minister had already been calling for a right to work at home back in December, the article notes.
Re: (Score:2)
We will fight for your right to work from the street!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
...and me without modpoints...
Re: (Score:2)
It's symbolic of your struggle against reality.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
How do the people who are working in shifts take advantage of flexible work hours?
Who do people working in hotels or gastronomy take advantage of work-free weekends?
Such laws are rarely beneficial for everyone. But that doesn't mean that they are sensible, anyways.
Re: (Score:2)
Street working is already legal in Germany
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Someone I work with actually argued that it was illegal to have people work from home because some people are homeless. And this was for a bunch of professionals that make several multiples of the minimum wage in one of the cheapest areas of the US to live.
Re: (Score:1)
if the company you're working for doesn't like this, they will find another "unrelated" reason for your termination.
I have replaced you with a simple shell script -- go away.
Re:Probably doesn't matter... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not at all. Companies need to be given a boost to demonstrate or encourage such a system. In many cases there's a cost involved with an employee working remotely that is considered without analysing the cost saved by them not being at the office. e.g. IT support remote becomes more expensive, but the office is smaller so leases become cheaper as one example.
This is born in the statistics. The Netherlands which already has a similar law in place Wet Flexible Werken 2016 (directly translated to Flexible Work Act) has 13.7% of the population working from home, Germany has under 5%. And the distribution of companies which are just randomly okay with it and offer it without any additional grounds just isn't that great between the two countries.
Re: (Score:2)
Because in case of doubt German employers (and I don't really think it is all too much different elsewhere, either) do nothing in favour of the employee even if it would not cost them anything, let alone if they think it might cost them something.
Re: (Score:3)
The company I work for (not German) has the boost needed to convert to 85% WAH, globally. It is already done. And going forward, more than 50% of our force will be WAH, possibly 70%. Even the CEO has embraced WAH for himself and staff.
Companies that today, right now, are not are either not able to or are working with a much smaller staff. And their first lesson is on how many they actually need to accomplish their goals. That's the most painful lesson being learned, right here, right now.
Re: (Score:2)
If there's even a 10-15% shift of staff working from home that's going to have some pretty enormous impact on commercial real estate, on public transit and on road use. Imagine the City of London, with 20% less people heading in every morning. The effect on restaurants, lease rates, and the other support industries built around commuters.
Re: (Score:2)
Cry me a river. They will need to adapt, or die. I suspect social distancing is here to stay for the foreseeable future, that's going to change their business model anyway. What about the local restaurants and take away places in suburbs who have always had a slow time during weekday work hours, and now will have an uptick in business from people working from home? Imagine where we would be if we discovered how to work iron, but decided we shouldn'
Re: (Score:2)
e.g. IT support remote becomes more expensive.
Remote support has never been cheaper or easier. Most support isn't due to hardware failures.
Re: (Score:2)
It might be cheaper overall, but there are costs and risks. Working remotely will have security implications that need to be analyzed, will often require some kind of VPN solution, and that in turn may require additional hardware (like laptops for everyone, 2FA devices, etc.). All that needs to be sorted out and paid for. Up until now some IT departments may have been taking the lazy option and just saying no.
Re:Probably doesn't matter... (Score:4, Interesting)
Quite the opposite, actually. The biggest roadblock to remote working currently, at least in my country, is that if you're allowed (not even required, ALLOWED) to work more than 50% from home, your company is required to provide you with a home office, including furniture, computers, internet connection, the whole 9 yards and then some. Which means that we currently have that ridiculous rule that we may work 49% of the time from home, and where it's implied with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge that we won't really look too closely but if you write your time sheets, could you pretend that you made it to the office at least 50% of the time, we won't check, don't worry...
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is if the company doesn't pay for that it disadvantages people who can't afford that stuff. And what about if your house is just too small and you don't have space?
If the company can get a smaller office and save on rent then it encourages them to hire people who already have a home office. It could end up like a university degree where if you don't have one they won't even look at you.
How long before pub libraries become WFH offices? (Score:4, Insightful)
Problem is if the company doesn't pay for that it disadvantages people who can't afford that stuff. And what about if your house is just too small and you don't have space?
If the company can get a smaller office and save on rent then it encourages them to hire people who already have a home office. It could end up like a university degree where if you don't have one they won't even look at you.
Makes me think public libraries will start offering barebones desks for people to work from home. It seems pretty obvious to me. We want to keep libraries open, so let's give them a greater purpose than a homeless hangout. Bringing professionals into it every weekday will definitely increase the funding and attention...not to mention it will bring regular business to small cafes near or in the library....hell, let people rent offices for a reasonable fee just the way people rent PO Boxes today.
Many people work remotely, but not from their home. My home sucks to for WFH because I have 2 small kids...many people in that situation pre-COVID would rent those temporary offices so they can be somewhere functional and office-like for 8h.
COVID will bring some interesting changes...I hope they're more positive than negative. I know some shithead evil executives are wondering...if the person doesn't have to be in the office, do they have to be in my home country?...and we may see a renewed spike in the debunked trend of offshore outsourcing...as well as the massive waste of money it was 15 years ago....when Slashdot had weekly stories about how no one would ever do software engineering in the US again and how we should all become analysts so our job doesn't get sent to India...and while it took about 10 years longer than I wished, everyone realized that it never saved their bottom line a single cent...actually cost a lot more and reduced quality greatly.
Re: (Score:2)
Makes me think public libraries will start offering barebones desks for people to work from home. It seems pretty obvious to me. We want to keep libraries open, so let's give them a greater purpose than a homeless hangout. Bringing professionals into it every weekday will definitely increase the funding and attention...not to mention it will bring regular business to small cafes near or in the library....hell, let people rent offices for a reasonable fee just the way people rent PO Boxes today.
This is a wonderful idea...probably worth at least $18 Billion... [techcrunch.com]
Half-way seriously, there are plenty of places doing just that. When I started working remotely, I went office hunting. Yes, they have the fancy-ass places that have break areas and beer and foosball and creative open spaces and the like. But there were plenty of places that gave you a room with a desk and an Internet connection.
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is if the company doesn't pay for that it disadvantages people who can't afford that stuff. And what about if your house is just too small and you don't have space?
You just summed up all the reasons why this law is dumb, why Germany is dumb, and why stupid governments need to keep their fat fingers out of employer-employee contracts.
Re: (Score:2)
Problem is if the company doesn't pay for that it disadvantages people who can't afford that stuff. And what about if your house is just too small and you don't have space?
You just summed up all the reasons why this law is dumb, why Germany is dumb, and why stupid governments need to keep their fat fingers out of employer-employee contracts.
The proposed law give people the right to work from home if it's feasable. It doesn't force companies to make people work from home. It doesn't force people to work from home if they don't want to.
From TFA: “Everyone who wants to and whose job allows it should be able to work in a home office, even when the corona pandemic is over,” [Labor minister] Heil was quoted as saying. and Heil stressed that “we want to enable more home working, but not force it.”
Re: (Score:2)
During Covid here in Germany so e hotels are actually offering spare room capacity for home workers
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The biggest roadblock to remote working currently, at least in my country, is that if you're allowed (not even required, ALLOWED) to work more than 50% from home, your company is required to provide you with a home office, including furniture, computers, internet connection, the whole 9 yards and then some.
That is not a roadblock. That is a once off small payment including a small subscription that pales in comparison to the cost of providing you a desk at the office. It works out cheaper to have employees work from home if you can consolidate the office as a response. It's a perception of a roadblock, oh and that law exists in the Netherlands as well, as I said, the most work from home friendly country in Europe.
Re: (Score:2)
The Netherlands which already has a similar law in place Wet Flexible Werken 2016 (directly translated to Flexible Work Act) has 13.7% of the population working from home, Germany has under 5%.
Where do you get the 5% number from? The very article we base our discussion says "working from home has risen from 12% to 25% during the virus crisis".
Re: (Score:2)
WAH is a solution for everyone in so-called 'knowledge' work right up to where you need your laptop replaced. No, your fulfillment team does not keep a stock in their hall closet, and they don't have FedEx pick up for overnight.
If I had to have IT work that was safe from being shipped overseas, it would be desktop support. In the financial industry. Traders. And I suspect they are a diminishing breed, being decentralized and automated. But those left still need just-do-it support.
Re: (Score:2)
WAH is a solution for everyone in so-called 'knowledge' work right up to where you need your laptop replaced. No, your fulfillment team does not keep a stock in their hall closet, and they don't have FedEx pick up for overnight.
I've been working from home full time since the governor of California announced the "safe at home" rules, as has nearly everyone in Engineering at my company. I recently mentioned in an email exchange with an IT support person that my MacBook Pro seemed to be getting awfully hot when I used it with a pair of external monitors. Two days later, a new MacBook Pro was in my hands.
Last week I received an email from HR telling me that if I needed a nicer chair or a stand-up desk gizmo to have a better ergonomic
Re: (Score:3)
We're talking Germany here. Employee rights are protected by law and they are (mostly) uphold in the courts. We even have a special group of courts that exclusively hear work-related cases (Arbeitsgericht). And these are said to have a tendency to rule in favor of employees.
Re: (Score:2)
We're talking Germany here.
and most or even all of the rest of the EU, canada, australia, japan, new zealand ...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
When first reading this it never crossed my mind that these workers would get fired for working remotely, because of strong worker protections in Germany. My first thought was whether companies would be able to pay different salary ranges for workers working remotely. This would be the more likely negative consequences to workers in my opinion.
Re: (Score:2)
are said to have a tendency to rule in favor of employees
"Are said"? By whom? Employers?
Employee rights and Arbeitsgericht always sounds so nice, but reality is quite different, because the danger in losing is not just losing a case, but being out of your job and having to pay court costs too, if you're not either unionized or have legal expense insurance.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Probably doesn't matter... (Score:2)
Seconded the neolibertarians (interestingly called neoliberals in Germany) like the Mont Pellerin Society, who are trying (and failing since forever) to change that, can fuck right off.
This! Is! Germany!
Re: (Score:1)
I think a lot of companies, especially the larger ones, are finally noticing that there are entire departments of professionally useless people. Even without them doing anything on-site, these companies have kept running. It is cheaper to have remote workers, it is safer with a proper IT team to support them, I think good companies will end up being more nimble and have a smaller footprint. The problem is going to be when governments will be demanding that these people keep working.
Re: (Score:2)
I think a lot of companies, especially the larger ones, are finally noticing that there are entire departments of professionally useless people.
No, they noticed this in the Great Recession as well. It is advantageous for companies to focus more on top line growth during good economic times, and constraining the bottom line during poor economic times. It is a cycle, and we will be in the "getting rid of useless people" part of the cycle now. As the economy improves companies will feel the burden of their cuts / hiring freezes and start hiring more, with some of those hires being useless people. But their attention will once again be on growth instea
Re: (Score:2)
It is the case that it is just the lone trouble maker. That can probably be the case. However, if a whole department or a good number of employees decides to work from home. Turnover costs are expensive, especially for the type of jobs that can be worked from home, are often white-collar jobs that have a lot of company policies.
Re:Probably doesn't matter... (Score:5, Interesting)
Many have been using flimsy excuses to deny home working until recently, and now they are allowing it... This goes to show that home working is possible despite whatever ridiculous excuses they've been trying to use to prevent it.
Re: (Score:2)
Working from home was always possible, but like most things in life a few assholes ruin it for everyone else.
Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds like a great idea to me.
Fewer cars on the road, so when I need to go to work that means a faster commute.
Fewer emissions as well.
Next... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Germany has pretty robust laws against employers spying on their employees. Those will not be weakened just because more people work from home.
Re:Next... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is illegal for employers to spy on their employees at work. There is no way it ever will be legal at home.
Re: (Score:2)
It's illegal to try to kill all the Jews, too.
That happened.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually no, the nazis changed the laws making what they did legal. And that is not the only reason why your argument is stupid.
Define "spy" (Score:3)
If the employer provides an email account for the purpose of business, they have a legal right to access that data. They can also revoke the employees' email access as desired and read emails sent to and received from their work accounts.
Employers can legally monitor file system timestamps and other similar digital breadcrumbs to reconstruct employee activities, often down to the second, on all employer-provided equipment.
Employers can legally log all employer-provided system accesses, again with precision
Re: (Score:2)
That's ad nauseam, you thick fucking cunt.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Also higher taxes on work-from-homers
Only in America could this happen as one more government ploy to empower big business.
Re: Next... (Score:4, Insightful)
You say that as if the US "government" was more than the skin of its victim, badly draped over big business. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
This ain't the US. It's already near impossible to spy on your employees at your office in most of Europe, trying to push something like that into their homes is pretty much unthinkable.
Re:Next... (Score:4, Interesting)
Those employees who no longer waste their time/money commuting are going to spend that money on something else taxable instead.
It will also breathe new life into smaller towns that have become depopulated due to a lack of available employment.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, the Fat Lou* argument. And a valid one. Better than the broken window fallacy.
* - 'Fat Lou Gerstner', so named by Howard Stern, led IBM through a massive through the 90s. He is credited with the mantra that if an employee didn't 'touch' a customer, as in make something sold to a customer, sell it directly to a customer, service it for a customer, they were expendable. Massive layoffs.One of my former employers did a lot of business with IBM and recalls shuffling form office to office for approvals and
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Companies worry that workers will slack off.
They will need to maintain an office because it would be discriminatory against people without home offices (i.e. poorer people who can't afford a house with spare rooms) and I expect most people won't want to work from home all the time anyway. So there isn't a huge saving in that respect.
Germany is very productive and wages are higher than the UK. They have some of the best employment protection laws in the world too. Strong and effective unions.
Re: (Score:3)
Workers slack off in the office too, just because you can see someone sat at a keyboard doesn't mean they're doing work - they might be on slashdot or facebook etc. I've found people slack off a lot more in the office than they do at home.
Affordability of housing has a lot to do with location... If you're forced to attend an office every day then you'll need to live somewhere nearby, if theres lots of offices in the same place then housing will be located further away and be more expensive. If you look at t
Stupidly anti-social. (Score:1)
All this will lead to, is an even more anti-social society of people who act like assholes to each other because the distance makes humans unable to empathize and because the social consequences are too removed from the actions to form a solid association.
Including the secondary effects like hurt people seeking revenge, and it growing into long-term resentment and feuds, which would all be resolved wirh a simple gesture in three seconds if the people stood next to each other.
Yeah, this is useful right now.
Re:Stupidly anti-social. (Score:5, Insightful)
I dare say, I notice quite the opposite. With people being cooped up at home against their will, they are craving human contact. I've rarely had meetings as pleasant as right now where people are genuinely happy to be at a meeting and at least hear other humans, even if just in a business meeting. People are happy to be there and genuinely go out of their way to appear pleasant and approachable because they want others to want to be around them.
Quite frankly, it's sickening for an antisocial person like me.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you mean asocial, not antisocial.
Antisocial people go out of their way to harm others. Asocial people simply don't care.
Re: (Score:2)
Or maybe the last sentence of his comment was meant to be funny. That's how I read it, anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
You see, an antisocial person might not really be sickened by the opportunity to make others miserable. Antisocial is defined by traits of disregarding the personal rights of other people and a tendency to go out of their way violate those personal rights of others (what people call psychopaths or sociopaths would be a very strong antisocial person
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks, I can now better explain how I feel about social gatherings and meetings too, and can finally deflect the "anti-social" labeling from me once and for all.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep. Being asocial myself on the grounds of having a schizoid personality disorder, I draw a clear line between people like me and people who are antisocial, hence my attemt at correction.
Long term remote work is isolating! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
> All this will lead to, is an even more anti-social society of people who act like assholes to each other because the distance makes humans unable to empathize and because the social consequences are too removed from the actions to form a solid association.
We already had this. It's called HR.
Re: (Score:2)
Horizontal Rule?
Re: (Score:2)
All this will lead to, is an even more anti-social society of people who act like assholes to each other because the distance makes humans unable to empathize and because the social consequences are too removed from the actions to form a solid association.
I feel this anti-social online behavior is mostly caused by anonymity and divided tribal groups on the Internet, not mere physical distance. I have never seen a significant difference between the civility of coworkers who work remote compared to those in the office. Today there may be a slight correlation between people who are anti-social and people who choose to work remotely, but that would mostly subside as more people work remotely.
Great idea - help save the planet (Score:2)
One good side effect of the Covid-19 lock downs has been the improvement in air quality due to fewer airplanes, cars, etc, moving. I hope that we can keep some of this benefit post lock down. It will also lead to less traffic congestion which means faster commutes for those who do travel. Employees benefit: less time 'on the job' - which includes commute time, less money spent on driving/train/... Employers benefit as they will not need to pay for so much office space.
This will not happen for all, but hopef
I wish my country would do this (Score:1)
agreed (Score:2)
Makes sense. I realize they are paying me so they get to say what they need, but employers that make people work from the office when their job doesn't require it need to be be punished. Punished just by the free market I suppose. Basically its equivalent to offering someone a job for 50/hr with the stipulation that you get to kick them in the nuts every morning. If the nuts kicking doesn't do anything to accomplish the goals of the company it shouldn't exist.
I know a lot of companies use perks as a negotia
Re: (Score:2)
Article stipulates that it is "where possible". I think a lot of it will come down to society learning and competition. If a programmer gets used to the norm being that they can work from home the company that doesn't find a way to accommodate work from home will have a hard time hiring people.
Remote foreign workers: agreed an issue but regulation can and does control that. Might need stricter laws and audits or whatever. Or society could just say oh well free markets go nuts. But just because you can work
If your job can be done entirely from home... (Score:2)
... it can be done entirely from India. Or Vietnam. Or Elbonia.
Re: (Score:2)
haha no, third world shithole dwellers don't have the tech chops let alone basic understanding of western society to do even a moderately difficult IT job. We've proven that over the decades.
Landlords will fight this (Score:3)
Think of all the commercial landlords who will suffer if many businesses allow people to work from home 50% of the time or more. That would cause lots of businesses to need less space and whoever owns all that property to be without renters. Due to that, I suspect all those property owners will push for legislation to make working from home much more difficult.
They could push companies to provide home internet, furniture, and other items. Also, I wonder how workers' compensation laws work if you have an accident while at home but "on the clock". If you trip and fall or get hurt, who pays? If your internet goes down for a week and your ISP is slow to fix it, what happens? Many companies are not prepared for these issues for a large portion of their employees.
Re: (Score:2)
...or property owners will create office space for those workers who wish to work remotely.
Here in the US, we have these things called "Executive Suites." I work from one--it's an office with Internet, electricity, and air conditioning. It also has a shared kitchen, bathroom, and photocopier. They have "business" programs where the cute receptionist up front will greet your visitors, offer them coffee, answer your phones, etc.. But they also have versions without any of that--just offices for rent. If
The right to Pretend to (Score:2)
I wonder how many have the discipline to work @ home.
Just my 2 cents
Re: (Score:2)
Nice for civil servants (Score:2)
You lie better in your own bed than on the hard desk.
Germany also now has a sort-of UBI thing. (Score:2)
Just a few months ago the German Federal Administrative Court ruled that sanctions on Unemployment Benefits Level 2 (a minimum sustenance for any unemployed, regardless of prior occupation or length of unemployment) may not be minimized below the money required for living.
Which makes it sort of an UBI.
The point being, that if you live by your means it's very rare that you lose your home or fortune if you go unemployed, even for longer periods of time or you have trouble getting your lazy ass to the Bureau o
Re: (Score:3)
Germany might just be headed towards utopia.
Meanwhile in reality: the more you unconditionally hand out for free the more people you attract from all over the world who never paid into the system and never will. Especially as our politicians are all for open borders with no limits or desire to prevent fraud. The government is already running out of money for all its programs so we regularly get higher and more taxes. Taxes which, spoiler alert, do not target the rich but everyone else because the rich can afford to just leave. For example we just got
Re: (Score:2)
I suppose you could argue that to prevent the market from adjusting prices you'd have to control it through a planned economy. But that would be quite the stretch, since it's not an inevitable development from UBI. Meaning that the slippery slope with Venezuela and the Soviet Union is still bullcrap.
Unfortunately that stretch is not as farfetched as it should be.
For example chancellor Merkel recently summoned super market representatives because food is too cheap according to her and prices should have to rise. Yes, food, the one thing everyone needs to survive is not expensive enough according to our politicians and they're pressuring super markets to raise prices. Then there is housing where the government determines how much rent you are allowed to charge as a home owner.
More planned economy is the
Can't speak for Germany, but in America? (Score:3)
I wouldn't support any legislation telling employers where their employees get to be, to get paid.
I think working from home is a great idea and many businesses need to take it more seriously as an option. But there's a lot involved that employees don't always think about. For example, many companies invested quite a bit of money in leasing physical properties for their people to work from each day. Sometimes they paid premiums for a more prestigious location and address, because that helps from a marketing angle. "Look how successful we are! Consider using us!"
All of a sudden, if a large percentage of those office workers decide they'd rather just work from home? The company still has to provide all the Internet bandwidth so they can connect to any servers they've got in house, but they're stuck paying for a lot of under-utilized space. It also creates a disadvantage for I.T. support staff because they no longer have the option to just stop by and take a first-hand look at things when there's a problem. Sure, you can do a lot via remote access and a phone call or video chat or what-not. But some things are SO much easier to see and resolve by being there. Video display issues are impossible to see from remote control software, for example. The display the remote user sees is generated for them via the software, and it often resizes the screen for the target display's resolution too. So you can't really see if things look "too small" or if the monitor has a pink tint to everything, or ??
Same thing happens with odd noises. The user can tell you the PC is making a strange grinding or ticking or beeping noise. But you'll probably get a better idea of what's really wrong if you walk by it and hear it yourself, as well as exactly where the sound is coming from.
Useful to solve another issue? (Score:2)
One of the problems with opening things up again prior to a vaccine or effective therapeutic is what to do with working people who are at high risk due to conditions that don't normally effect their work productivity.
In many cases, their employers don't know about the condition that makes them high risk for a bad outcome from COVID19. Maybe they don't want their employers to know they have diabetes or hypertension or something else.
When work opens up for them, they probably should stay home. So they'll ne