Despite the fact that many workers in Germany are already working while sick, the push by conservative politicians, businesses, and Germany’s corporate media to further torment workers is relentless.

The attacks of the three headless riders of the apocalypse – reactionary politicians, businessmen, and corporate media – on Germany’s system of sick leave continue unabated. Yet the trade union’s DGB-Index Gute Arbeit – the index of good work – adds facts that directly contradict the ideologically motivated calls of Germany’s neoliberals.

Elsewhere, as in Germany, there is something known as presenteeism – workers going to work while sick. Already a ten-year-old survey (2015) showed that presenteeism was widespread in Germany. Almost half (47 percent) of workers stated that they had worked at least one week in the previous year despite being ill. In short: work until you drop.

This is particularly widespread among workers with high psycho-stress workloads – where plenty of advise is offered on how to “cope” with stress caused by management but not how to fight it. In capitalism, the solution is “stress management” and not ending insane work demands set by corporate management.

Overall, work intensification remains a key concern in many workplaces, and there is – no surprise here – what is commonly misconstrued as “a bad working atmosphere.” These aren’t atmospheric phenomena.

They are caused by management: micro-management – a negative leadership style defined by excessive close control and super-surveillance of workers, constantly and obsessively focusing on minor details. In other cases, this mutates into macho-management, overbearing authoritarianism, the deceitful manager, the resentful manager, and newer forms like the algo-boss. The list is endless.

Obviously, such managers contribute to workers feeling forced to work despite illness. Virtually any worker would be lying if they claimed that management abuse does not exist. This goes well beyond anecdotes.

Yet despite the daily barrage about supposedly excessive sick leave pushed by the neoliberal trio – reactionary politicians, bosses, and corporate media – the car manufacturer BMW, for example, which employs almost 90,000 workers in Germany, reports that it has no problem with the much-trumpeted so-called “excessive sick leave.”

BMW states that the number of days of incapacity for work has been well below the level of comparable companies for more than ten years. At times, the massive media bombardment on sick leave simply does not match what is actually occurring in German industry. Undeterred by reality, the “too much sick leave” propaganda marches on. As they say: never let facts get in the way of good propaganda.

Worse for the neoliberal trio, BMW provided numbers. In 2025, the sick-leave rate in its German operations was a measly 3.6 percent – including the first days of illness for which no medical certificate is required.

Meanwhile, Germany’s chancellor – the neoliberal millionaire and private-jet lover Merz – rages against what he falsely calls “celebrating sickness.” Yet at Munich-based BMW, everything is under control.

Still, neoliberal propagandist Merz swings into action, claiming that “whoever celebrates sickness, steals.” In reality, businesses need to steal from workers – otherwise profits would not exist. Virtually no company shares the profits it makes fairly and equally with its workforce.

It gets worse. The ex-BlackRock man Merz has called for the abolition of Germany’s time-honored Working Time Act, which at least partially protects workers from excessive management demands.

For reactionary Merz – a chancellor with Nazi skeletons in the closet – the current system “invites abuse.” Not by management, of course, but by workers, so the neoliberal fairy-tale goes.

Merz’s crusade against sick leave is the final twitch of a corporate system that refuses to accept human biology. When has capitalism ever done that? What corporate bosses seem to want are robots.

Germany’s peak union body, the DGB, explains it bluntly: the uber-neoliberal chancellor believes that “workers are idlers.” Perhaps from high above, flying in his private aircraft, Merz sees only idlers. In reality, he mistrusts millions of workers who keep society running every day. And if – unlike at BMW – sick leave were truly excessive, Merz’s neoliberal instinct would still be to blame the victim rather than ask whether capitalist working conditions are making people sick.

Meanwhile, German health insurer DAK reported that in 2025 there were 19.5 absenteeism days per insured person. Sick leave remains at a persistently high level. Absenteeism due to mental illness increased noticeably by 6.9 percent. DAK explicitly calls for more sick leave as an important tool in combating mental illness – which is hardly unrelated to work stress.

Mental illness has now pushed musculoskeletal problems into second place among reasons for illness-related work stoppages. Rather than blaming workers, DAK is calling for a “sick-leave summit” in the chancellery.

A survey by Techniker Krankenkasse, which insures many engineers, found in 2021 that almost every second person goes to work while sick. According to the survey, 51% of the more than 11,000 respondents said they “sometimes,” “often,” or “very often” work despite illness.

Women are particularly affected by presenteeism, as are workers exposed to high levels of work intensification. A third group identified by TK are those who regularly work overtime – they, too, frequently go to work sick.

Data from these more than 11,000 workers show the negative consequences of presenteeism. A similar DGB survey found that half of all workers go to work sick. Women are affected more often (53 percent) than men (43 percent).

It gets worse. For almost a third of workers (32 percent), the days worked while being sick add up to a full week or more per year. DGB data show a clear connection to three factors:

1. Management: when working conditions are made unbearable by management invoking its self-invented “right to manage”;
2. Demands: when company culture is “problematic” – a euphemism for micro-management, macho bosses, and extreme work intensification; and
3. Labor Market: when fear of job loss is high and the brutal realities of the so-called “free” labor market are exploited by corporate management.

Beyond all this, it is a common fallacy to assume that companies save costs through presenteeism. On the contrary: numerous studies show that sick workers generate enormous costs. Productivity losses associated with presenteeism are massive.

These losses are estimated to be as large as – or larger than – the costs caused by illness-related absences. Workers who go to work sick are demonstrably less productive, and occupational physicians know that the risk of infection and prolonged illness rises significantly.

Overall, presenteeism is at least as widespread in Germany as illness-related absence. Rather than following the ideological bandwagon of millionaire chancellor Merz and his propaganda, Germany needs a fundamental rethinking of public consciousness.

In the end, absence from work due to illness must not be stigmatized, equated with laziness, or weaponized for right-wing populist goals. Workers should not be forced to work until they drop – as happened at Amazon’s Erfurt warehouse, where a worker died a lonely death in a company toilet.

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