[ilc]

Disclaimer: I'm a US Citizen / Worker, white collar.

My first job had: Unlimited sick time. Take it when you need it. No doctor's note. I think you may have needed one at the week mark. Never hit at that employer. Most employers have been limited sick, with a note at a week.

I can't imagine note on day 1. That's just... nuts. The lack of trust shown there is massive. I'm making calls on stuff far larger than my sick days. If you can't trust me on sick days, how can you trust me to do my job?

[rich_sasha]

Don't know about other places, but in places I have worked that required sick note on day 1, you could get one via a phone/video doctor's appointment.

You could argue that this is accountability theatre, though frankly for something like a cold - what will a doctor see face to face that they won't on the phone?

It's still a positive amount of faff but pretty tiny.

[eska]

If I was going to pretend I’m sick I’d just say I have diarrhea. There’s no way for the doctor to check it. So yea this is theater.

[wqaatwt]

Employers still have the option to not require it on day one if they choose? It’s just that they have the option now if they feel specific employees are abusing it. Considering that you can’t fire people in Germany for taking an excessive number of sick days (even if you have good reason to believe they are faking it that doesn’t seem unreasonable)

[Timon3]

> Considering that you can’t fire people in Germany for taking an excessive number of sick days (even if you have good reason to believe they are faking it that doesn’t seem unreasonable)

This is not true, it is possible to fire people in these cases.

[inigyou]

You have the option in Germany to require a doctor's note on day 1. If an employee is sick too much, their health insurance reimburses you for their salary.

[joe_mamba]

>The lack of trust shown there is massive.

All systems based on trust eventually get abused. Not by everyone of course, but catching a few with their hands in the cookie jar is enough to trigger a rethink on the whole trust-based thing. Most corporate German workers I knew were taking a few extra vacation days a year as sick leave, or using fake sick leave(often weeks or months!) as revenge if their employer didn't give them their desired raise or promotion. Their own admission, it's basically an open secret when you move there. Hell, we had German colleagues that would mysteriously get "sick" exactly before the customer delivery crunch, every-single-time, like clockwork.

The problem is when this becomes culturally normalized, more and more people do it as they see those abusing it get away with extra vacation days so then they think why wouldn't they do it too, otherwise they're suckers, right? And so after a while, the abuse starts to become so rampant and obvious to the employers as well, which leads to increasing the cost of doing business in Germany, and so everyone gets the collective punishment if they still wish to keep their jobs and not lose them to neighbouring countries that have cheaper labor because workers there don't abuse this system(yet). That's the same thing that ended 100% remote/WFH jobs and triggered the return to office mandates, too many people obviously scamming the trust based system pretending to work while actually doing nothing.

>I'm making calls on stuff far larger than my sick days. If you can't trust me on sick days, how can you trust me to do my job?

These policies aren't meant to target the German workers making important decisions who have a lot of bargaining power, but those on menial jobs to keep them working on the hamster wheel. It's what the communist system was designed to do to workers too. You keep them busy all day conforming to stupid bureaucracy and queues, and they're too busy to protest or switch jobs, forcing them into indentured servitude. Merz is a product of Blackrock after all. So it's either a 50 IQ move or a long term 500 IQ move.

Anyway, this isn't the first time in recent history when labor privileges were scaled back in Germany. Agenda 2010[1] did similar things, mostly by defanging unions. The truth is that those crazy good perks were gotten by the working class when Germany was the world industry leader post-WW2, but now Germany's industry output is at a 20 year low(thanks to a series of political and corporate self-owns) so it can't afford the same perks like in the past, and needs to scale back its generosity if it wishes to stay solvent. At the end of the day it's just business, and you need business to fund the welfare state.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agenda_2010

[dijit]

> System based on trust eventually get abused.

This is true. The tyrrany of the untrustworthy is that they destroy society for the rest of us.

The best thing we can do is control our spaces where it can be controlled. Don't hire untrustworthy people, be extremely punishing to those who break trust.

Rule 0 of any good community is: don't act in a way that makes me create a new rule. Workspaces are as much community as anywhere else, as much as Americans promote the idea that we're not actually fully human when working.

[_DeadFred_]

In the USA the most untrustworthy among us who in your words are "destroying society for the rest of us" are employers, as wage theft by employers is the largest form of theft in the country.

If workspaces are as much a community as anywhere else, the fact that the rot starts at the top should be the most major concern. People taking sick days seems like it falls way down the list of concerns in trying to get the American workspace ethical and overcome the tyranny of the untrustworthy (employers) of which you speak.

https://www.epi.org/publication/epidemic-wage-theft-costing-...

"In 2019, the total cost of every robbery in the country was $482 million. The cost of wage theft was more than 100 times that number." https://www.workingnowandthen.com/blog/wage-theft-the-50-bil...

"More than $1.5 billion in stolen wages recovered for workers between 2021 and 2023" https://www.epi.org/publication/wage-theft-2021-23/

[joe_mamba]

>In the USA the most untrustworthy [...] are employers [...]tyranny of the untrustworthy (employers)

Have you ever been an employer? Like if being a trustworthy employer is so easy why aren't you and many other people doing it to set an example? How come all employers are tyrannical?

IMHO your blame is misplaced. A lot of the issues you point out are not due to employers, but due to government regulations or lack thereof, and the issues of the way the economy and financial systems are setup to incentivize, which the government is also responsible of regulating and enforcing. Without proper regulation and enforcement to even the playing field, the only ones who manage to stay in business will be the unethical ones and all those gets dragged into the mud.

Try being an employer for a year and find out for yourself. It's easy to just say employers are tyrannical when you've never been on the other side and never had to deal with workers like you who automatically blame society's woes on you just because you're a business owner as if S/M business owners make and enforce the laws.

[_DeadFred_]

Why are you defending/waiving away wage theft? Not stealing from people and following the law is the absolute minimum an employer can do. It is not the governments fault when you break the law. Should it be ok for an employee to steal because someone else stole from work? Because society is complex and hard and has rules and laws but can't police everything 24/7?

I've been an employer. I've been a manager. My family owned factories. None of us were forced to steal wages. If you are in that situation you are a zombie business that can't actually afford to function properly.

Here's OPs tone that I simply echoed back but directed at the actual identified largest thieves in our nation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48788134

And they are the largest thieves without even going into abusing 1099. Hiring undocumented workers under the table. And all kinds of other 'acceptable to civil society' society undermining behaviors.

[joe_mamba]

>Why are you defending/waiving away wage theft?

I'm not, and since you started the argument in bad faith with things I never said, I will stop talking to you there because obviously there's no point to it and I'm wasting my time and energy on you.

[ilc]

There will always be abusers. The issue I see is day 1 asks. Not day N. If I'm out a week asking why is reasonable. If I'm out a day, it's more annoying for everyone.

And I'm not advocating for no limits with no responsibility to the employer. That'd be stupid. Clearly there's a "more sane" middle ground.

Even on a menial job, they are dealing with more value than they make daily, by definition.

A middle road exists, and it is solid, why it isn't being taken, I don't know.

[wqaatwt]

Your employer doesn’t have to ask it on day 1 if they “trust” you, though. They just have the option now. Of course unfortunately it will still affect a lot of people who aren’t cheating neg.

> A middle road exists, and it is solid, why it isn't being taken, I don't know.

That’s what Germany has now, though? i.e. companies are only allowed to require it from day 3