Germany: the Minister of Labour wants to create a right to telework

As the resurgence of Covid-19 and its Omicron variant makes teleworking once again mandatory in Germany for all employees for whom this form of working is possible, Hubertus Heil, German Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, has announced his intention to establish this system within everyday working life on a long term basis, by introducing a ‘right to telework.’ For the Social Democrat Minister, it is a question of drawing lessons from the “large-scale teleworking experiment” that the coronavirus crisis provoked. He added that the new governing coalition would establish “modern rules for teleworking in Germany”. Under the Minister’s plan, employers will in future have to allow their employees to work from home, unless there are “operational reasons” precluding this option. At the same time, Minister Heil wants to limit the “negatives” of teleworking, namely that it “must not make you sick. Even when teleworking, there must be an end to the day.” According to the Federal Statistical Office of Germany, 24% of employees were working from home in January 2021, compared to 4% before the pandemic.