BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) has rejected the proposal by Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte to abolish sick pay for the first day of sick leave.

"Anyone who places employees who have reported sick under general suspicion of playing hooky has a distorted view of the working people in this country," Heil told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). He said that Germans are not shirkers and slackers. "Restricting sick pay will not happen with me and the SPD."

Heil warned that low-income workers in particular would suffer from a reintroduction of the waiting day. "It would hit people hard who are actually ill and who have a low wage, especially women," said Heil. "That's why this is the wrong approach."

An employer who suspects that someone is playing hooky can also demand that a certificate of incapacity to work be presented from the first day, Heil said. "Anyone caught playing hooky must also expect consequences under labor law."

Allianz CEO Bäte had proposed reintroducing the waiting day. This would mean that employees would bear the costs of the first day of illness themselves.

Mr. Bäte has thus sparked a debate about sick leave in Germany, which is statistically high by international comparison. Unlike some other countries, Germany has had a policy of continued wage payments from the first day of illness for decades./sl/DP/zb