Posted on 08/28/2014 12:23:00 AM PDT by Olog-hai
Germany’s Labor Minister Andrea Nahles has given her backing to an anti-stress law, announcing a study into workers’ mental health on Tuesday.
Nahles told the Rheinische Post newspaper that she had commissioned the Federal Institute for Health and Safety at Work to come up with a report on the feasibility of a possible law to protect workers from stress caused by smartphones and constant contact with their bosses.
“There is an undeniable link between having to be constantly available [for work] and the rise in mental illnesses,” she said, but she added it would be a challenge to implement any law. …
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.de ...
What happened to Germany? They used to be a serious country.
What were they serious about?
During the 2008 financial meltdown, all they did was blame the USA, and insist that the social market replace the free market.
“..constant contact with their bosses.” — lol
I meant back when they were still known at West Germany.
They still had the social market economy back then too. And they had “Willy Brandt” playing up to the Soviets.
The Germans did an odd thing after the meltdown...they asked questions. How did the US government allow all this speculation of real estate to turn into investment opportunities with questionable values? How did the US banks convince almost all of the banks in Iceland to invent investment tools drawing in thousands of naive Germans? What exactly was the SEC doing for the past five years? As the head of the German Tresaury was reacting in the early stages....how did American banker VIPs get his number and continue to call their private home number....trying to get leverage on the market place in the initial early stages?
As Timothy Geithner arrived and started spewing bogus financial wisdom...that was the last straw and Germany began to question almost every single strategy that new administration was putting into place. Geithner’s name still gets brought up and German financial experts laugh over his strategy ideas.
This anti-stress law? They are reacting to a growing trend of Germans getting early pensions because doctors and mental health experts have signed off on Germans no longer being capable of working....way before age 66. Since 2005, there’s another twenty thousand Germans on top of the forty-seven thousand that existed then.
How close are we to doing the same thing with Social Security? You might want to speculate and think about this. The federal government now runs both health care and social security. It won’t take more than a decade to have ten million Americans on stress-related retirement by their late 20’s. You are simply getting an early view of what will come to America by 2025.
I was thinking along the lines of the Helmut Kohl period. Been to Germany many times during the 80s and early 90s. While they had their share of slackers, the general impression I always got was that they were serious, hardworking...and aggressive. Similar to the Swiss. They were the dominent force in Europe. Maybe Gerhard Schroder began their decline. BTW, I’m not a big fan on Merkel.
That obscures the role of the European Central Bank, who kept raising interest rates while the USA was slashing them.
I’m not commenting on the people, who have some really good qualities, but who are also unfortunately susceptible to being manipulated by their elite politicians who have a far different agenda.
Kohl’s attitude of “the future … belong(ing) to the Germans … when we build the house of Europe” should have rung alarm bells. Thatcher spoke out against that.
Seven years of almost zero-interest rates in the US, and has accomplished what? Almost every economics professor who appears on the Business Channel and gets dragged into this topic....basically mutters that it’s a grand experiment that has never been done before and they have no idea where this leads? And this is US nationalist policy?
I’m not buying into the ECB, but all things considered...the US Fed and Treasury department strategy is the one that I’d question to a great extent.
Take note that while the Fed slashed interest rates, the ECB raised theirs, thus pulling the rug out from under its rival. Collateral damage be damned, of course; it’s all about power.
Sometimes you need to be away from your job, and undergoing spiritual renewal on a distant golf course. Just ask the pResident, he tries to limit work to six or seven days a year.
I take it you’re not expected to be available 24/7, while paid for 40 hours per week. While Americans rip Europeans for their worker protections, understand that we have ended up in the same place (high unemployment & prices coupled with low birthrates and wages) - and they get free healthcare and at least a month of vacation.
Criticisms of Europe are so September 10th...we are the pot calling the kettle black.
I’m not commenting on the people, who have some really good qualities, but who are also unfortunately susceptible to being manipulated by their elite politicians who have a far different agenda.You got that exactly right.Kohl’s attitude of “the future … belong(ing) to the Germans … when we build the house of Europe” should have rung alarm bells. Thatcher spoke out against that.
The socialist politician mentioned in the article, Andrea Nahles, has never held a job in her entire life (except as a politician), incidentally. But she thinks she knows how to regulate the workplace, of course.
“There is an undeniable link between having to be constantly available [for work] and the rise in mental illnesses,”
I’m trying to visualize the looks on my superiors faces as I valiantly plead my case. Might as well make a play for the “siesta” as well.
What about the stress from watching liberals destroy Western Civilization?
Not sure what point you are trying to make, but I live in Europe and I have my phone with me all the time, I am available to take calls 24 hours per day, and I sometime work 7 days a week.
Yes, Germany is imploding.
First, no one can really believe that mental health has increased 80% in a few years. This is obviously a result of changing the definition, expanding it to include minor symptoms. It also is probably a result of giving more benefits to those claiming emotional “mental” diseases. “I feel fatigued!” (and that sort of thing.)
Note that probably no country in the word has such a record of hypochondria as Germany. Often the cure is to go on vacation at a designated Kur-Ort (cure locality), which benefits by this sort of sickness-tourism.
Where is the work ethic in Germany? If it is such a great, socialist-welfare system, why are so many people going crazy, (or at least claiming to be “mentally ill”)??
Good for Germany.
There is no question that technology is turning work into 24/7 slavery.
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