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Berlin (dpa) - The compensation rules for parents who cannot go to work due to closed daycare centers and schools or limited operation of the facilities will be expanded in view of the new corona lockdown.
A compensation for loss of earnings from the state should therefore also be given if schools are not closed, but only if the mandatory attendance for the facilities is suspended, as is now the case in some federal states.
The Federal Cabinet launched a corresponding amendment to the Infection Protection Act in Berlin on Wednesday.
The government partner, the SPD, is dissatisfied with this, and criticism has also come from the opposition and the trade union side because not all of the parents concerned benefit from it.
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As a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of Health said, the new rules for compensation should also apply to so-called alternating lessons, on days when the students are at home or during extended school or company holidays, for example in daycare centers, if these are officially ordered.
In spring, a compensation regulation for parents was included in the Infection Protection Act due to Corona.
So far, mothers and fathers who are absent from work because the health department has quarantined their offspring or because schools and daycare centers have been officially closed have been entitled to a wage replacement payment of 67 percent of the net income from the state.
This will now be adapted to the current lockdown measures.
Depending on the federal state, schools were either closed completely or compulsory attendance was lifted and switched to so-called homeschooling.
The federal states also proceed differently with the daycare centers: there are closings or only urgent appeals not to bring the children if possible.
In this case, the compensation scheme should not apply because the facility is in principle still open.
In any case, it is likely that daycare centers and schools will not go back to normal operations for a long time after January 10th.
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The state compensation for loss of earnings is only available for parents of children up to the age of 12 and parents of children with disabilities who are dependent on help.
The employer submits the applications for compensation to the competent local authority and passes them on to the employee as continued wage payment.
At their corona crisis summit on Sunday, the federal and state governments agreed with the lockdown resolution to create “additional opportunities” for parents to “take paid vacation” to look after children.
There is no longer any talk of paid vacation.
The social policy spokesman for the CSU in the Bundestag, Stephan Stracke, announced that a corresponding proposal by Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) had been rejected because it was only the employers who had to finance it, although the care problems were caused by government action.
Criticism came from the SPD: "We would have liked to give parents a real right to special leave, with full wage compensation from the employer," said the parliamentary manager of the SPD parliamentary group, Carsten Schneider, of the editorial network Germany (RND).
The Chancellor's proposal had been rejected by the CDU / CSU parliamentary group.
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The opposition was also critical.
In the regulation, the parents of daycare children were forgotten, said the family policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Grigorios Aggelidis, the RND.
"A supplement for parents who do not give their child to the daycare center due to official appeals, although they could do so, would be urgently needed".
Ekin Deligöz, spokeswoman for child and family policy in the Green parliamentary group, criticized the government, as in the spring, leaving parents in the home office in the rain.
"You are not covered by the regulation and have to master supervision, homeschooling and home office at the same time."
The chairman of the IG Metall trade union, Jörg Hoffmann, said: “It is, to put it mildly, a bad joke to promise parents and families this opportunity and to exclude the home office from it.
Who works, works.
Who cares, cares. "
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201216-99-718212 / 2