German company slammed for contract condition

– Germany’s Deutsche Post faced criticism yesterday for penalising short-term employees who call in sick too often, 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 fixedterm employee should be given

Frankfurt am Main

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.

The German government owns a near 21% 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 spokesperson said yesterday 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”. –