#321: Tesla sick-leave, bike cops, striking kitas
Plus our marathon enters middle age
Hey 20 Percent!
We have moved to stop 1b of my attempt to become German. Step 1a was finding a place to take the Einbürgerungstest (citizenship test), which turned out to be Neubrandenburg, an entire state away in Mecklenburg Western Pomerania.
And Step 1b is paying the fee for that test. And how I pay for it couldn’t be more German. They sent me the invoice, known in bureaucratic German as a Gebührenbeschied, in a letter. On paper. In an envelope.
An email would have sufficed. Or just a paypal link after I registered online (which I couldn’t do either but I could at least do it per e-mail).
My journey is progressing.
I also took an indirect step by going to Oktoberfest not just once this week but twice. The Spaten and Hacker-Pschorr tents, if you must know.
And I hate to admit it: I had fun.
Have a good weekend y’all — the weather experts say it’ll be the last summer-like two days off you’ll have this year.
Andrew
The 20 Percent News Quiz is back Saturday at Comedy Cafe Berlin! An hour of improv hilarity as funny expats/immigrants give us their takes on German and Berlin news. Hosted by me. Tickets.
But are you really sick?
In today’s Tesla ticker: The electric carmaker says visiting employees on sick leave to see if they’re sick, sick is completely normal behaviour for a company, according to RBB24. The goal of visting employees who chronically call in sick is to make an appeal to the “work ethic of the workforce”. The visits came after up to 15% of the 12,000 employees at the plant in Grünheide, southeast of Berlin in Brandenburg, called in sick on a given day — by comparison, just 2% of the 1,200 temp workers at the factory employed by an external provider call in sick. Most of the 12 employees visited by managers didn’t open the door and several considered calling the cops, according to Handelsblatt. People on X said the visits are illegal — they’re not.
More of a recommendation than a referendum
Berlin’s current government is really good at dragging their feet. Three years after Berlin voters demanded a law that would force large corporate landlords to sell significant numbers of apartments to the city (Deutsche Wohnen & Co. enteignen), the city still hasn’t even tasked someone with considering how it could be done, according to Tagesspiegel. Finance senator Stefan Evers (CDU) has said he’s now working to award a contract for just that but he’s first going to wait for the next meeting of a committee tasked with looking at how a law could conform with the German constitution before he does it. But he swears he’s going to do it. Sometime. Soon. -ish.
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Bike cops back in the saddle
Probaby every Berlin cop is disappointed: A ban on two bicycle brands used by the Berliner Polizei for their bicycle-mounted force has been lifted, putting 155 bikes back in service and forcing more than just a few people in blue to once again pedal their beat. The bikes were pulled out of service in April when stress from safety training damaged the bikes, according to RBB24. The Berliner Polizei worked together with the two unnamed bike companies to repair the bikes and get the force back on two wheels.
The teachers strike back
Finally, if your kiddo is in a state-run kita, we feel for you. Berlin is suing to prevent an unlimited strike that is set to start Monday, according to Der Spiegel. Union Verdi wants teachers to have more planning time (time spent with administrative tasks rather than watching kids) and fewer kids per teacher. Thoughts and prayers.
Germany-wide news
🟤 Should immigrants leave AfD-led states?
🍀 Green party brass resign after election(s) drubbing
🪙 Italy’s UniCredit eying one of Germany's two trademark banks
🌊 Oder river swells to highest warning level in nearby Frankfurt Oder
Factoid
The Berlin marathon turns 50 this year. What started as a small idea has now morphed into one of the world’s five most-important long-distance competitions. As someone who’s run it twice, the annual event is always difficult because I get an urge to do it again. But, as a French man joked to me on the night before my second: “I have total respect for someone who runs one marathon and no respect for someone who runs two.” The number of Danes at the marathon is also always surprising — Berlin supposedly becomes the second-largest Danish city by Danish population during the event.
Is it because we're as flat as Denmark? Are other marathons hilly?