From the employer’s point of view, a 3G rule at the workplace only makes sense with a right to information.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin In future, employees should only be allowed into the office or factory if they have been vaccinated, recovered or tested. The health experts from the SPD, Greens and FDP said on Tuesday in Berlin that the Ministry of Labor had been asked to propose to integrate the 3G rule at work into the Infection Protection Act. The ministry will formulate an amendment to the draft of the traffic light groups that has just been submitted for the amendment of the Infection Protection Act.
For employees without proof of vaccination or convalescence, the 3G rule would mean that they will have to be tested daily for corona at work in the future. However, there are still many questions unanswered. For example, whether employees have to fear sanctions if they refuse the daily corona test.
For the general manager of the employers’ association BDA, Steffen Kampeter, this is obvious: “Those who fail to provide evidence will often no longer be able to be employed,” he says. In addition, from the employer’s point of view, a 3G rule only makes sense if all employees have to provide information about their vaccination status.
According to current law, the employer is not allowed to request health data from employees. However, the grand coalition had decided on exceptions for employees in certain facilities – such as daycare centers and nursing homes.
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The German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) rejects any further information obligation. Employees must be protected from infections in the workplace as well as possible, and employers are obliged to ensure this, said DGB boss Reiner Hoffmann. The extension of the Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance planned by the traffic light parties, which includes hygiene concepts and mandatory testing, is an important step.
However, “disproportionate interference with the basic rights of employees” should not be allowed, stressed Hoffmann. Therefore, an obligation to provide information should be rejected. A 3G regulation, on the other hand, could be an effective instrument for protection against infection in the workplace. But: “The costs for the tests must continue to be borne by the employer and the testing must be part of the remunerated working hours.”
“Meaningful specification of occupational safety”
Legally speaking, nothing speaks against a 3G regulation, says Wolfgang Lipinski, labor lawyer at the Advant Beiten law firm in Munich: “The employer has an obligation to protect his employees against dangers to health and limb.” The Offenbach Labor Court filed the lawsuit in February rejected by an employee who did not want to take the PCR test required to enter the factory premises.
For the Bonn labor lawyer Gregor Thüsing, the 3G regulation is “a sensible specification of occupational safety that was overdue”. However, questions remain unanswered, such as whether employers can also request that people who have been proven to be vaccinated can be tested.
Or whether employers are also obliged to apply the 3G rule. Johanna Wenckebach, director of the Hugo Sinzheimer Institute for Labor Law (HSI), called on politicians to clarify open questions quickly: Works councils have done a lot in the last two years to protect the health of employees – even outside the home office. But: “Unclear legal framework conditions burden the parties and create additional conflicts.”
Thüsing and Lipinski, on the other hand, thought it sensible to finally establish an obligation to provide information about the vaccination status: “The government shouldn’t leave employers out in the rain here,” says Lipinski.
More: Health authorities capitulate before the fourth wave: “In many places, contacts can no longer be informed”