Corona quarantine: no salary after rejected vaccination offer?

This article first appeared on RTL.de.

Anyone who has to be quarantined after vacation in a high-risk area or after contact with corona infected people and consequently cannot work, asks themselves: Will I actually get my salary while I’m on sick leave? A legitimate question, because more and more often one hears of cases in which employees refuse to continue paying their wages. Lawyer Nicole Mutschke explains whether this is legal and what else employers need to know.

Continued payment of wages in the event of illness through no fault of their own

In principle, the following applies: If an employee becomes ill through no fault of their own, they have the right to continued payment of their salary. This is regulated by the Continued Remuneration Act: It says: “If an employee is unable to work due to illness and is not at fault, he is entitled to continued remuneration in the event of illness by the employer for the period of incapacity for work up to a period of six weeks . “

Nicole Mutschke explains: “That means, in the event of illness, the employer makes an advance payment and receives wages from the state.” The situation is different, however, if an employee is quarantined by the health department and cannot go about his work. Since there is no illness in this case, the Continued Remuneration Act does not apply.

Sick leave due to Corona: What if you have turned down the vaccination offer?

In this case, however, the employee is helped by Section 616 sentence 1 of the German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch): This regulates that “the person obliged to provide the service does not lose the right to remuneration because he or she has spent a relatively insignificant amount of time in his Person is prevented from providing the service for no fault of his own “. This paragraph ensures that the employee receives his salary even in quarantine.

But how can it be that some employees still do not receive payment if they have to be in quarantine? “The employer does not receive any compensation from the state if its employees have to be quarantined after they have turned down a vaccination offer,” says the specialist lawyer for labor law. The basis for this is the Infection Protection Act (IfSG).

It says: “Compensation according to sentences one and two will not be granted to anyone who, through the use of a vaccination or other specific prophylaxis measure, which is required by law or has been publicly recommended in the area of ​​the habitual residence of the person concerned, … is prohibited from exercising his previous activity or segregation could have avoided. “

In the end an individual decision?

Here the continued payment of wages depends mainly on the phrase “through no fault of one’s own”. “Only if an employee is absent through no fault of their own is he entitled to a salary (according to the Infection Protection Act),” explains Mutschke. “If the employee could have prevented the quarantine with a vaccination, the employer will not receive any compensation from the state for the wages paid,” said Mutschke.

Whether the employer has to continue to pay his employee in this case depends on whether or not he has excluded Section 616 sentence 1 of the German Civil Code (BGB). “If the employer has excluded the paragraph, the employee receives neither money from the state nor from the employer,” summarizes the lawyer. “So it’s always a case-by-case decision.”