Berlin “close to state failure”

Berlin - In the capital, official appointments are once again hard to come by. There is a reason for this: Berlin employees in the public sector call in sick an average of 36.8 days a year. Long-lasting positive corona tests and the summer flu are currently exacerbating the already tense situation.

But why are Berlin civil servants and public employees so often ill? The chairwoman of the main staff council, Daniela Ortmann, sees two reasons. In addition to "very challenging" customers, who increasingly physically attack employees, Berlin bashing is also to blame: "It's frustrating and makes you sick."

The capital has been known for years for the fact that it takes months, sometimes even years, to get an appointment for re-registration, a driver's license or other administrative procedures. In the meantime, a lucrative market had developed from this: enterprising residents secured several appointments with a lot of perseverance and then sold them on the black market.

According to official figures, each of the 125,000 public employees was sick on 36.8 calendar days a year. However, Berlin counts the weekends in these statistics, which does not immediately allow comparisons with other federal states. If you deduct a total of ten Saturdays and Sundays from the slightly more than five calendar weeks, there are still a good 27 working days left.

Verdi trade union: "Berlin is no longer able to act"
In Bavaria, this value for the authorities is 10.5, and the nationwide average is around 18 days. The comparatively high level of sick leave in Berlin is also due to the fact that many there are permanently ill: 31.4 percent of sick people in the public sector are absent for more than six months, 20.6 percent between six weeks and six months. Only around nine percent call in sick for a maximum of three days.

Particularly precarious: The highest sickness rates are in security-relevant areas. Corrections, police and fire brigades record a large number of failures. "In these so-called risk-prone areas, the workload is particularly high due to shift changes and job-related physical and psychological demands," said the Senate in response to a request from the AfD parliamentary group. In the district administrations, too, sick leave has increased over the years.

The situation is so dramatic that, according to the Verdi trade union, countless school children are no longer examined before they start school, building applications are not processed and plants are not approved. Spokesman Andreas Splanemann says: "In many areas, Berlin is no longer able to act. We are on the verge of state failure."

Source: Junge Freiheit