Status: 25.06.2021 10:50 a.m.
The care officer Westerfellhaus and labor minister Spahn welcomed the verdict on 24-hour care as “groundbreaking”. Health Minister Spahn, on the other hand, sees no reason to change the situation.
The federal government’s authorized care representative, Andreas Westerfellhaus, sees a great need for action in 24-hour care. The 24-hour support must therefore become a “megatopic of politics”, he told the newspapers of the Funke media group. Westerfellhaus had already made a similar statement in May when he published a catalog of demands. “Inadmissible working hours, lack of integration and social security, but also unclear qualifications and liability are just some of the critical points,” said Westerfellhaus in May.
“Big Legal Risks”
He now welcomed the ruling by the Federal Labor Court, according to which foreign nursing and care workers posted to Germany are entitled to the statutory minimum wage, even during on-call time. It is good that there is now more clarity on the payment of carers. “Far too little has been known to the public that most of these care settings are fraught with major legal risks – possibly including criminal liability,” the care officer told the Funke newspapers.
The need for action is complex, but obvious. The Federal Labor Court in Erfurt ruled in a landmark judgment announced on Thursday that the minimum wage entitlement also exists for on-call work and also for nurses who care for people in their private homes 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Heil praises judgment
Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil called the judgment “groundbreaking and correct”. “Work has a dignity. Regardless of whether you come from Bucharest or Bottrop: If you work, then you have earned a decent wage,” said the SPD politician in the RTL / ntv program “Frühstart”.
Spahn sees no need for action
Federal Minister of Health Jens Spahn (CDU), unlike the authorized nurse, sees no need to address the precarious conditions in 24-hour care. This emerges from a response from his ministry to a parliamentary request from the left-wing faction that is available to the editorial network in Germany.
When asked whether the government wanted to take up the demand made by Westerfellhaus in May that 24-hour care should become a “mega-topic of politics”, the ministry wrote that the authorized carer had set out “his ideas for the further development of care”.
The left-wing care expert Pia Zimmermann told the editorial network Germany: “The fact that one’s own authorized care representative is publicly dismissed is one thing. Much worse is that it expresses the CDU’s perfidious care strategy: Financing care completely inadequately, but abroad poach them to spare the rich, “said Zimmermann.
According to the ministry, there are also no plans to change the exemptions from international occupational safety regulations for 24-hour carers in Germany. “The Federal Government does not see any need for changes with a view to Germany’s ratified Convention No. 189 on decent work for domestic workers of the international labor organization,” the answer said.
The convention of the international labor organization ILO regulates working hours, among other things. In Germany, however, this does not apply to people who live in the household of people in need of care. This also includes employees with 24-hour care.