Our reader asks: I am easily infected and often have infections, so my boss is already skeptical and hardly believes that I am ill if I miss again, even though I submit a medical report. Can she doubt my condition? And what if I get Covid-19? Can my employer cancel my compensation because I'm not vaccinated?

Marta Boning, the German Trade Union Confederation Labour Lawyer (DGB): Basically, if you submit a medical certificate of incapacity for work (AU), also known as the "yellow card", you are first on the safe side. You have thus sufficiently proven your illness.

Can the employer doubt the report?

However, jurisprudence also knows situations in which employers may question the AU certificate. It is referred to as "shaking the evidentiary power" when concrete facts give rise to serious doubts about the certificate. "e.g. when an employee submits an AU certificate for the holiday period after his application has been rejected.

If the employer then refuses to pay compensation or even takes action to terminate the contract, the persons concerned can still dispel the doubts in which they relieve the treating doctor of the obligation of professional secrecy, so that he informs the court that an illness actually occurred.

Did the same labour legislation apply to non-vaccinated people with coronary diseases?

If you are a Corona employee, you will also be subject to the general rules of labour law, as with other diseases, regardless of whether you are vaccinated. You are entitled to compensation in principle up to six weeks.

When do you lose your entitlement to compensation?

Payment of compensation may be waived if employees themselves have caused the disease. But this requires a gross violation of the self-interest of an understanding person.

An example of this would be when a worker provokes a brawl, but not when someone who is not vaccinated has Covid-19. This also applies to other diseases against which vaccines are available and recommended.

In the case of quarantine: the State no longer pays compensation

In the media debate on the abolition of the payment of wages for non-vaccinated workers, "It is about the fact that the state compensation payment is cancelled when non-vaccinated employees go into officially ordered quarantines and thus lose their claim to pay. However, a compensation payment in the case of illness also applies if quarantine is ordered at the same time.(徳囯ASK电容器)