Corona measures
These rules currently apply in the world of work
Is the world of work a previously underestimated pandemic driver?
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Private life as good as abolished, the world of work hardly regulated: The political strategy in combating corona is meeting with resistance.
Despite the hard lockdown, the number of infections and, above all, the number of deaths in the corona pandemic seem to remain high. Now the calls are getting louder and louder to regulate the world of work more closely, as the vast majority of Corona measures have so far only aimed at private life and leisure activities. Among others, the Thuringian Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow (64, Die Linke) is now calling for a lockdown for the economy.
The burden is borne primarily by restaurateurs, retailers, cultural workers and children. That's why he wants to put the economy on a break, said Ramelow in an interview with "MDR aktuell". The Green parliamentary group leader Katrin Göring-Eckardt (54) also calls for more corona protection for employees. "Above all, open-plan offices are risk areas," she told the Funke media group. Half-hearted requests to employers are not enough; regulations are needed.
"Children's walks are more strictly regulated than workplaces"
The blogger and journalist Sascha Lobo (45) also asked the exaggerated question in a moody comment in the magazine "Der Spiegel": "Why is literally every children's walk more strictly regulated than the workplaces?" But is that even true? You have to admit: yes! An example: Due to the new rules, siblings are only allowed to romp around on the playground separately from one another and without parents nearby with a mutual friend. However, it is still allowed to sit in an open-plan office for twenty eight hours at a time.
In general, all exit restrictions or 15-kilometer regulations do not apply when the person is on the way to or from the workplace. The same applies to the contact restrictions. There is also no right to work from home, as Göring-Eckardt demands. An employee has to go to the office if his boss asks – even if his work could be done from home without any problems.
This is true in offices
Surprisingly, only very few regulations apply locally that cannot even be compared with the strict requirements of restaurants or cultural establishments before the lockdown. There is a mask requirement in common rooms and if a distance of 1.5 meters in the direct workplace cannot be granted.
Everything else, however, is in principle voluntary measures by employers. Requests yes, obligations no. There is also no upper limit for people in open-plan offices. Politicians have so far left it at appeals, for example to make home office possible, to ventilate frequently or to adapt production processes with regard to infection protection. Not more.
Collateral Infections in Public Transport?
This is now increasingly being criticized because there are encounters not only in the workplaces themselves, but also when using public transport to and from them. Precisely because there is less use of alternatives such as bicycles in winter, especially in larger cities, those affected repeatedly report full underground trains, suburban trains, trams and buses as if there were no Corona at all. A pandemic driver that has so far received too little attention from politics?