
Amazon is using peer pressure to keep German workers from calling in sick - dsr12
https://qz.com/962717/amazon-pays-german-warehouse-workers-bonuses-partly-based-on-when-their-coworkers-call-in-sick/
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merricksb
Heavily discussed 12 days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14091880](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14091880)

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heisenbit
This is sick.

> workers are not required to provide a doctor’s note until after the third
> day they stay home with an illness.

There are ways for employers to require on the first day if abuse is
suspected. Amazon should stick to established employment practices than to
come up with contractual innovations that undermine the spirit of the law. The
risk that a worker is becoming sick belongs firmly in the realm of the
employer and not of co-workers. Shifting that is abuse of power.

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DasIch
An employer can ask for a note on the first day, there is no law against that.
Employers don't do that because it's incentives sick employees coming in which
gets expensive when all of them do stay home.

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pluma
> Germany is known for its generous labor practices, including paid sick days.

I know Americans aren't used to employees having rights but the country that's
known for its generous laws isn't Germany, it's France.

~~~
_of
What they mean is that it's being generous compared with the US.

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grecy
Which, as everyone that lives in a Developed country outside the US knows, is
not saying much.

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sqldba
LOL. Disgusting. They turn it from "sickness" to "preventing injury".

In Australia it's called personal leave (though many bosses don't) because it
covers not just you being sick but also family being sick.

I take sick leave liberally. I suffer depression and don't go to work. Sick
leave is calculated as part of the salary, just like holiday.

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kutkloon7
The result is probably that people who actually give a damn about their
coworkers work, even when they are sick, and the people who don't call in sick
when they aren't.

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EliRivers
I have told sick colleagues before who have come in that they are doing more
damage than good. That turning up in their condition, infecting everyone else,
is a net drag. That they will take longer to get better and will produce lower
quality work while they are sick, and they will infecting others, causing even
more damage.

If they really cared about their coworkers, they would stay home and get
better. If they care about being seen to be at work (for whatever reason -
maybe they have a toxic culture of presenteeism) over their coworkers, they'll
come in.

Of course, if the cost of staying home is that everyone loses a bonus, we can
come to some arrangement. I would be happy for my sick colleague to take it
easy and just mark time while the rest of us covered their work for the day,
and I'm sure we can send them off "to gather supplies" or some such if we need
to. You get what you incentivise; you incentivise employees to come in when
they're sick, that's all you'll get.

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ar0
Yes, this is what I never get about incentives like that: why on earth would
you _want_ to incentivise your employees to come to work sick?

A constantly sneezing worker will be unprofessional, prone to making errors,
much less productive and endanger his/her co-workers. Now, granted, this is
Amazon so no client will see those warehouse employees and I guess their
processes are so airtight that one employee making mistakes won't have such a
big impact (four-eyes principles or whatever). But it still seems pretty
inefficient to me.

In Switzerland, some companies have insurance that covers sick days for
employees - if your employee is sick, the insurance company will pay the wage
during that time. This is mainly meant to cover longer sicknesses in smaller
companies, who otherwise might get into real financial issues, but it also has
the (in my opinion) desirable side-effect that a company is actually better
off sending you home than having you at your desk as a half-productive zombie.

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snowwolf
That is one less generous interpretation of the policy. However, knowing
Amazon are fairly big proponents of Lean/Kanban/Systems Thinking, I suspect
the intent is actually a different one.

The alternative interpretation would be: Amazon is using peer pressure to make
German workers call in sick.

Any group who actually thinks about it would quickly realise that 1 person off
for 2 weeks with the flu is better than 10 people off for 2 days each with the
flu.

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foepys
You're ignoring two things: 1. People's selfishness and 2. People of older age

> Any group who actually thinks about it would quickly realise that 1 person
> off for 2 weeks with the flu is better than 10 people off for 2 days each
> with the flu.

People tend to not think that way. It'll not be "luckily David stayed home so
we don't get sick" but "David stayed home _again_ and we didn't meet the
requirements, screw you David!"

Older people ("older" as in 45+) are more often sick due to age related
problems like back pain, knee problems, etc. Having those people on your team
means that you are disadvantaged in comparison to other teams that don't have
so many older people. People notice those things and will try to get rid of
the older people to get their cut. To the company the experience of older
people matters but their colleagues only see their bonuses disappear. This
creates hostility between age groups and (imho) leads to ageism.

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chrido
This is plain disgusting. My wifes employer (not Amazon) has a similar concept
to reward bonuses for teams and this causes a lot of mobbing against her and
her colleague (also mother). The reason less bonus got paid out were sick
leaves, well they don't call it that way, but it boils down to that.

Reason for her/our sick leaves are not that we are sick, but kids < 4 years
are just more often sick when going through all the various childhood
diseases. Kindergarten will phone you and you have to pick up your sick kid
within an hour. Then one of us has to stay at home and watch the sick kid
until the doctor says it's ok to put them back in kindergarten.

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drinchev
Most people I know here, abuse the rule with the 2 sick days ( making extended
weekend e.g. ), but there's something more though.

I don't see what's wrong with people skipping work from once in a while, so
even abusing the rule is not such a big deal ( IMHO ).

Maybe as a capitalist country, if amazon needs dedicated people they can
easily increase the pay-rate, which is low anyway, to the point that people
will care more about being at work, than being "sick".

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Scarblac
What would increasing the pay-rate change? Being sick would also pay more.

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literallycancer
That's not the issue. When you are paid peanuts, you stop caring about the
work.

