Companies should not be obliged to offer their employees home office and two corona tests a week from October. According to the Ministry of Labour, the federal cabinet in Meseberg, Brandenburg, passed a new Corona Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance on Wednesday. According to this, employers should only “check” a home office offer for employees and a regular offer of tests as part of a hygiene concept. The new regulation is to apply from October 1, 2022 to April 7, 2023.
In an earlier draft of the ordinance from the home of Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD), it was still said: “The employer must offer employees the opportunity to carry out suitable activities in their home if there are no compelling operational reasons to the contrary.” In addition, there was an obligation to offer two tests per week. This proposal from the Federal Ministry of Labor had received a lot of criticism.
“Time to leave the panic corner and get back to normal with Corona.”
After the draft became known, employer president Rainer Dulger decided that it was “time to leave the panic corner and get back to normal with Corona”. The FDP also welcomed the current slowdown. “The obligation to offer home offices, the obligation to wear masks and the obligation to offer tests – we could not have explained all of this to employees and companies,” said the labor policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Pascal Kober, of the Reuters news agency.
Obligations for companies to offer tests and home offices expired in March. At that time, responsibility for corona measures was largely placed in the hands of employers. At the end of May, when the Corona Occupational Health and Safety Ordinance expired, the remaining requirements for companies also expired. Now the ordinance is to be reactivated. The reason: for autumn and winter it is to be expected that the number of infections will increase significantly again. Therefore, protective measures would have to be taken again in working life.