Deutsche Post under fire for penalizing employees who call in sick too often

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Germany's Deutsche Post faced criticism on Monday for penalizing short-term employees who too frequently call in sick, with Finance Minister Olaf Scholz urging the logistics giant to change the practice.
The controversy comes after Deutsche Post admitted on Sunday that one of the criteria it used to decide whether a fixed-term employee should be given a permanent contract was the amount of sick leave taken, confirming a report in the Bild am Sonntag daily.

Workers who have been off sick more than six times or have racked up more than 20 sick days over a two-year period lose their chance of winning an unlimited contract, according to Deutsche Post's internal rules.

"To the extent that we can influence it, we will respond immediately to see the practice changed," Scholz told German broadcaster ARD late Sunday.

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"Those who hold a seat on the supervisory board for us will respond... talks have already been agreed," he said.

The German government owns a near 21-percent stake in Deutsche Post through the state development bank KfW. It has a voice on the company's supervisory board, with a finance ministry official and a KfW representative each holding a seat.

A Deutsche Post spokesman told AFP on Monday that the firm was "in regular contact with our main shareholder" and fully intended to "respond to the questions" asked.

The spat comes at a time when the government is pushing employers to offer staff unlimited contracts whenever possible to clamp down on the proliferation of precarious, fixed-term contracts that are popular with bosses but leave workers with little job security.

Reiner Hoffmann, head of Germany's DGB trade union federation, said Deutsche Post's actions were "morally reprehensible".

As part of its decision process on whether to grant permanent contracts, Deutsche Post workers are also judged on how many traffic accidents they have been involved in on the job, and how long they take to finish their routes.

The group has defended its criteria, saying they were "neither arbitrary nor intransparent".