-Analysis-
The German language has many handy expressions for people who can work but don’t want to. They “machen blau“ (“make it blue”, meaning skip school) or “feiern krank” (celebrate the sickness, as you would celebrate a holiday), they are “Drückeberger“ (shirkers, quitters), “Bummelantinnen” (slackers) or “Faulpelze” (lazy furs, or lazy skins).
Some of this words sound cute, but don’t be mistaken. If somebody uses them to describe you, they are judging you quite harshly: employees who like to take the day off shouldn’t expect much understanding from their German colleagues.
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It’s no surprise that many advocate to make life difficult for the Faulpelze: Last week, Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte argued in an interview with Handelsblatt that the so-called waiting day, which existed in Germany until the 1970s, should be reintroduced. Waiting day means waiving pay on the first day of illness. The Allianz CEO is not alone in his demand: economist Monika Schnitzer also recently called for the reintroduction of the waiting day, and the economist Bernd Raffelhüschen even advocates for three days of waiting.
The reason behind such positions, which have already been faced with stark criticism, is the historically high level of sick days that German workers take. In Germany, employees are sick far more often than in other European countries, and the trend has recently been increasing. Depending on who you ask, the number of sick days varies: according to Allianz CEO Bäte, it is an average of 20 days per year, according to OECD data, just under 25 days, and according to the Federal Statistical Office, around 15 days.
It is controversial whether the increase is really as blatant as is currently being emphasized, or whether it is related to the fact that, after 2022, sick notes have since been automatically forwarded to the health insurance companies, making them more clearly traceable.
Moral hazard
The question is: could it actually be counterproductive to make access to health and rest more difficult? It might result in people spreading illnesses and delaying necessary doctor appointments. One thing is certain: the topic has become a central one in Germany’s current election campaign.
if you have to pay for the first day, you will think twice about whether you can’t make it out of bed.
The idea behind the requirement for a waiting day is clear: if you have to pay for the first day of illness yourself, you will think twice about whether your cough, back pain, menstrual pain or world-weariness is really so bad that you can’t make it out of bed.
A waiting day reduces what economics calls moral hazard: the temptation to act carelessly or, when sick, to be sluggish because of so-called perverse incentives. In fact, a pay cut seems to be effective if you want to reduce the moral risk of absenteeism.
When the French government introduced a waiting day in the public sector in 2012, for example, the number of sick days fell. In 2014, though, President François Hollande abolished the waiting day.
The Center for European Economic Research calculated that a reduction in continued salary payments during illness by 20% would reduce absenteeism by 20%. There is historical evidence for that: When the CDU government under Helmut Kohl decided to cut sick salaries to 80% in 1996, absenteeism fell rapidly — until Gerhard Schröder repealed the law two years later.
Dangerous connection
You can rely on these facts, while you mutter “slackers, lazybones!” to yourself, to complain about the fact that the German state makes it far too easy for citizens not to show up for work. But you could also object that the connection between lower pay and fewer absences does not prove that people are skiving. Anyone who fears a loss of pay would rather drag themselves to work with a cold than get a sick note, especially if they have a low income.
This creates a division between the lazy and the hardworking in society.
If you were to zoom out a little, you’d see that this discussion is part of a much larger discourse that has been going on for some time. The idea that a pay cut in the event of illness will weed out the slackers implicitly creates a division between the lazy and the hardworking in society. This is actually part of the political discourse: Friedrich Merz, for example, announced “an agenda for the hardworking” a few months ago, saying that he wanted to “make life easier for those who get up every morning and do their job.” Lars Klingbeil also said that there is no such thing as a right to be lazy, and that the “life of the hardworking” should be improved .
The rhetorical division into lazy and hardworking people seems astonishingly naive in its simplification: as if these attributes were fixed characteristics and not rather states that depend on external conditions. Isn’t everyone sometimes weak and sometimes active, depending on their mood, their environment and also their opportunities to recover from stress, or illness?
Is it that banal?
It feels like a conflict between those who continue to work even when they have a cough and those who take advantage of the benefits of calling in sick for the slightest injury. But is it really that banal? What if this was actually a debate between those who defend the achievements of the welfare state and those who attack it?
Continued payment of wages in the event of illness is an achievement of the labor movement.
Like almost all the protections of working life (minimum wage, holiday pay, eight-hour day), continued payment of wages in the event of illness is an achievement of the labor movement. From 1861 onwards, it’s a social battle that lasted almost 100 years: in 1956/57, around 30,000 shipyard workers in Schleswig-Holstein fought for the Workers’ Illness Act in a strike lasting almost four months, which is still considered one of the toughest, if not the toughest, industrial disputes in post-war history. But the shipyard workers of the 1950s did not just fight for a few marks more in the event of illness. They fought for much more: the right not to be treated with suspicion.
“In case of doubt, defend the accused” is one of the best-known principles of the rule of law. And just as the presumption of innocence applies in law, it should also apply in the discussion about wages. “In case of doubt, defend the sick” – not because there are no people who happily (or often defiantly, frustrated by a lack of career prospects, bullying bosses or generally a work environment that is not good for them) take sick leave, but because the chain of associations that equates any absences to faking illness can have a dangerous impact on our welfare state.
Culture of mistrust
Every social welfare program, from pensions to minimum wages to sick leave, consists on the one hand of principles and on the other hand of measures that are intended to implement these principles. If you change something in the measures, this will automatically affect the principles.
A system based on the assumption that it will be abused does not work.
If the salary on the first day of illness were to be cut, the principle that employees receive pay in the event of illness would still apply, sure. But it would only be valid to a limited extent: every illness would be looked at with suspicion. Generosity would be replaced by a culture of mistrust. The Tesla plant in Grünheide, which is leading the way in dystopian advances, shows where such a culture can lead: last autumn, management was paying home visits to employees who called in sick. But a welfare state cannot be maintained with mistrust.
A system based on the assumption that it will be abused does not work. The insinuation that people are skipping out on work is already a first step towards the dismantling of the welfare state. Perhaps the German debate can take some inspiration from Great Britain, where the government is planning to abolish the three days of waiting that have previously applied — and to introduce continued payment of wages from the first day of illness.
