Trade union demands:

Recognize nursing professions as hard work

Nursing and healthcare professions should be recognized as hard work. This is what the Public Service Union (GÖD) and younion are now demanding. At present, employees' applications for heavy work are almost always rejected. 

The work is becoming increasingly physically and mentally demanding, with night shifts, Sundays and public holidays being the norm. According to the trade unions, the current legal situation does not take into account multiple stresses or heavy work hours. As twelve-hour shifts are common in the healthcare sector, for example, the required 15 days of heavy work per month can hardly be achieved.

The current regulation stipulates that 120 of these days must have been completed in the last 240 calendar months. In addition, 45 years of insurance are required for employees to be able to take early retirement with a 1.8 percent deduction per year before the cut-off date.

"Regulation reaches as few people as possible"
 "If I write a regulation that reaches as few people as possible, then I make it," criticized Reinhard Waldhör, who is responsible for care and healthcare facilities at the GÖD. According to the trade unions, nursing and healthcare professions should generally be recognized as hard work, or at least be calculated on an hourly basis.

Sunday, May 12, is Care Day. To mark the occasion, information and distribution campaigns are planned in hospitals and care facilities throughout Germany. Parliamentarians will also receive information material and items such as a sleep mask, coffee lozenges and handkerchiefs from the trade unions. These items are symbolic of the pressures in the healthcare sector.