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German Clampdown On Sick Leave: No More Phoning It In, Doc Note Needed On Day 1

Zero Rss
1 month 1 week ago
German Clampdown On Sick Leave: No More Phoning It In, Doc Note Needed On Day 1

In a stark departure from its reputation for employee-coddling, the German government is attacking the mass abuse of sick leave with strict new policies that would require a doctor's note obtained on the very first day an employee is sick, with no ability to simply take a sick day with a mere phone call. The reform package also targets retirement ages, tax rates,  regulations, welfare benefits and the ease of hiring and firing. It's expected to pass parliament by year's end. 

“The number of sick days is too high,” German chancellor Friedrich Merz told reporters. “We are creating a set of tools that will enable those involved, both employees and companies, to correct this. We know this is a tough decision. But we can no longer afford the competitive disadvantage caused by prolonged absences from work.” Merz said the changes are needed to invigorate Germany's economy, which has faltered after the COVID pandemic and suffered from the West's interventions in the Ukraine war and Iran. 

After months of disagreements, Germany’s governing coalition has agreed on sweeping reforms to revive its economy.

Chancellor Merz hopes changes to the tax code, less bureaucracy, and a more flexible job market will help. But will they be enough to fix Germany? pic.twitter.com/jHqmUJBG4D

— DW Politics (@dw_politics) July 2, 2026

Previously, employees in Germany didn't need a doctor's note until their third day of absence, and they could obtain the note via a phone call to a doctor. The rules also granted up to six weeks of leave per illness. A new bout of sickness started a new six-week clock. 

On top of enjoying six weeks of vacation time, the average German has been taking nearly three weeks of sick leave per year. The German sick-time pace is about double the US pace, and is also higher than the call-out frequency in Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, Poland and Italy. However, sick-leave abuse is even worse in France and most of the Nordic states. 

Predictably, German trade unions are up in arms. Frank Werneke, who leads the services-sector union Verdi, said Merz was "creating a culture of distrust of employees." (Seems like maybe the employees collectively cultivated that distrust by casually calling out sick.)  

“Now remove their sick leave, tell them they need to suffer through a heatwave without AC, and make their trains break down”

“Yes, my queen, it will be done. Glory to Germany” https://t.co/WZkyNbJ1JD pic.twitter.com/a8lD3G2Nps

— Nikolaus M (@foxofreason) July 2, 2026

Medical professionals are squawking too, warning the policy will be a hammer-blow to efficiency and doctor availability. The German Association of Family Physicians called the new rules "an absolute catastrophe," adding that "our practices would be flooded with patients who don’t need in-person care and would be better off in bed." 

The German reform package resulted from negotiations between Merz's center-right Christian Democratic Union Party and the Left-wing Social Democrat Party that is part of the ruling coalition. The package also includes:

  • A gradual increase of the retirement age from 65 to 67
  • The introduction of a capital-markets fund for the investment of contributions to the state pension system
  • Greater ease in hiring short-term workers and firing top-earners
  • Welfare reform that incentivizes laid-off workers to get a new job as soon as possible 
  • €10 billion in income tax relief for working-class and middle-income households, fueled by a tax hike on those earning more than €250,000 a year, along with reductions of assorted tax breaks
  • Deregulation, including sweeping relief that drops most requirements for employers to feed statistics to government bureaucracies, and the easing of data privacy regulations for small firms
  • Bakeries and pastry shops will have the freedom to stay open later on Sundays
Tyler Durden Sat, 07/04/2026 - 07:35
Tyler Durden

The American System Rejects Europe's Economic Suicide

Zero Rss
1 month 1 week ago
The American System Rejects Europe's Economic Suicide

Authored by J.B. Shurk via American Thinker,

National self-sufficiency beats globalism’s mass dependency.

What makes a nation wealthy?  It’s not just arable lands surrounded by other lands filled with water, timber, coal, gas, oil, metals, and minerals.  It’s the farmer who knows best how to cultivate those lands in order to maximize food production.  It’s the woodsman, miner, fisherman, and oilman who can extract nature’s bounty and provide the raw materials for every kind of manufacturer.

Producing things requires knowledge and skill.  Competition between producers creates an incentive to innovate.  This motor of discovery — in which human ingenuity uses established knowledge and long-harnessed skills as inputs for creating new forms of knowledge and skill — generates increasing efficiencies in production.  Costs go down; prices go down; producers produce more; consumers consume more.  Economic freedom, therefore, is a wealth-generating feedback loop that benefits all of society.

A nation that can do all of these things on its own is a self-sufficient nation.  A nation that is capable of producing more than it consumes is an exporting nation.  A nation that exports more than it imports is a nation whose people become increasingly wealthy.  The rest of the world pays that nation for its way of life.  The world pays that nation simply for existing.

Anyone who says that a nation’s culture is irrelevant to a nation’s standard of living is a liar.  Productive cultures generate national wealth.  Lazy, reckless, or destructive cultures ensure lasting poverty.  There’s an adage so old and universally embraced that numerous cultures claim authorship: Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day.  Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.  People generally acknowledge these truths.  Whether you are a ninth-century Viking raider or a twenty-first-century welfare queen, if you cannot produce for yourself, you cannot feed yourself without taking from others.  Whether a Somali pirate or a Somali “l-e-a-r-i-n-g” center fraudster, you are dependent on theft from others because self-sufficiency is out of reach.

What might a nation do to encourage wealth creation?  Just as a good farmer cultivates the land to maximize a harvest, good national leaders cultivate social values that maximize personal production.  A culture that values knowledge, skill, and hard work encourages members of society to learn and labor in pursuit of productive innovation.  A legal system that prioritizes protections for private property and personal liberty encourages increased production and wealth creation.  A society that takes pride in building and manufacturing new things fosters a spirit of entrepreneurship.  An entrepreneurial society encourages a self-sufficient society.  A self-sufficient society produces a self-sufficient nation.  Therefore, the cultivation of virtue within society simultaneously cultivates a wealthy nation.

These aren’t difficult concepts to understand.

Why, then, do most Western nations reject the proven path toward national wealth?  Why do Western politicians celebrate “multiculturalism” over the historically productive virtues of Western culture?  Why do Western pundits disparage knowledge, skill, and hard work as attributes of “white supremacy”?  Why do Western lawmakers make it more difficult for Western citizens to own land and personal property?  Why do Western bureaucrats churn out rules and regulations that limit what can be built and manufactured?  Why do Western governments make it difficult for small businesses to thrive?  Why do Western news media claim that only foreign migrants are willing to perform blue-collar jobs?  Why do Western bankers claim that only foreign slave laborers are capable of manufacturing critical goods?  Why do Western professors spend more time lecturing about racism and oppression than how to critically think, invent, and build new things?  Why do Western NGOs support open borders, “climate change” regulations, and economy-killing taxes?  Why do religious leaders praise the criminal and not the faithful Christian?  Why do cultural leaders encourage citizens and foreigners alike to become dependent on social welfare?  Why do pop culture leaders extol frivolous excess over hard work and discipline?  Why do Westerners celebrate gay “pride” for at least a month each year instead of encouraging all citizens to take pride in what they build, learn, and accomplish?  Why do Wall Street and the City of London work so hard to deprive the United States and the United Kingdom of economies that benefit Main Street businesses as much as multinational conglomerates?

Reading through the above questions should lead a rational person toward a reasonable conclusion: The people who currently maintain economic and political power in the West have no interest in making the nations that they ostensibly call “home” wealthy.  The United Kingdom and the European Union cannot produce wealth if their manufacturers are forced to use windmill-generated energy that has been exponentially outpowered by coal and steam for four centuries.  Germany cannot produce wealth if it subsidizes Chinese automakers while bankrupting its own with “green energy” regulations.  Canada cannot produce wealth if it refuses to use its abundant natural resources while importing most manufactured goods from Asia.

Western nations that refuse to use hydrocarbon and nuclear energies are nations dependent on foreign powers for manufacturing.  Western nations that refuse to allow their farmers to grow crops and produce meat and dairy supplies for their home populations are nations dependent on foreign powers for food.  Western nations whose people lack the knowledge and skills to repair everything from small appliances to entire electric grids are nations dependent on foreign powers during crises.  Western nations that lack the cultural will to be self-sufficient are nations stuck in a permanent state of dependency.  If you hand out food stamps liberally and look down on people who insist on providing for their families without government assistance, then you will produce a nation of pirates and fraudsters who make, grow, and build nothing.

How does the United Kingdom survive when it produces next to nothing?  Right now it generates most of its revenue by acting as the economic middleman for most of the globe.  Even though its empire has collapsed and its navy has disappeared, the City of London’s army of bankers, consultants, and lawyers still take a nice cut of every economic transaction around the planet.  They collect insurance fees, regulatory fees, and investment fees like an absentee landlord still bilking old colonies with “rules-based” trade agreements that put money in the pockets of English lords who create nothing.  The Bank of England and the Secret Intelligence Service work together to game the international economy by stirring up regional conflicts and using insider knowledge to bet on the eventual market winners.  Britain’s central bank has ensured that the wealthiest members of society profit from market manipulation while the rest of society suffers from currency depreciation.  This is an economic model engineered to benefit a small cabal of “noble elites” while impoverishing the larger nation.

Ever since some of Britain’s nobles succeeded in convincing some of America’s nobles to erect a Federal Reserve central bank in the Bank of England’s image back in 1913, this funny money con game has drained America’s wealth, too.  Although Americans’ can-do spirit has buoyed economic liberty and growth, the parasitic structure of central banking has steadily deprived the United States of its once unparalleled self-sufficiency.  The gradual debasement of the U.S. dollar has led to the decoupling from the gold standard, the creation of a petrodollar dependent on forever-wars and foreign entanglements, the offshoring of industry and manufacturing, and international trade “deals” that make America more dependent on foreign powers while kicking back “service” fees to Wall Street and City of London bankers.

This is what globalization really produces: dependency.

For the United States to be wealthy and strong, we must return to an American system that mines, grows, and builds everything.  Our people must embrace both personal and national self-sufficiency.  We must reject Europe’s economic suicide.

Tyler Durden Sat, 07/04/2026 - 07:00
Tyler Durden

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