Assistance with employment law and workplace investigations

Questioner

Hello, I work in the transport industry. Now the next challenge is playing out. I myself have 4 damaged vertebrae, and I can do my work just fine, as long as I have a well-functioning chair. I have spoken to the planning department at my work about this several times. It went well for a while, until the beginning of this week. It seemed again that the people on the planning department do not want to take someone with back problems into account. I indicated again at the beginning of this week that I need a good and well-functioning chair, and apparently it does not get through to them. Yesterday I got a little irritated by this, after I had to indicate again, a car with a good seat, not a torture chamber, whereupon one of the planning staff members shouted loudly through the building.... I was unable to work a full day yesterday because of this, and I am under the guise of having used up my driving time. Once I got home, I plopped down on my nest, and when I woke up, it took me 2.5 hours... Now I wonder, what should I do with this, because I cannot and do not want to continue like this?

Lawyer

You have the right to ask your employer who the company doctor is. You then have the right to invite the company doctor - at the employer's expense - to come and view your workplace and the work chair. I advise you to discuss this with your employer, although you are not obliged to do so.

Lawyer

A workplace investigation is not done by the company doctor, but by the occupational expert based on the medical restrictions determined by the company doctor. A good employer must follow the recommendations of the ArboDienst. If you have any further questions or require advice, I advise you to contact a specialized employment law attorney.

Lawyer

An employee can invite the company doctor to conduct an investigation and provide advice at the employer's expense. The company doctor contributes to healthy and safe working conditions. Prevention is better than cure. By advising on protective measures, illness due to work can be prevented. Other measures can also have a preventive effect. That is procedural. This doctor maps out the limitations and possibilities using a so-called functional possibilities list (FML). The FML indicates, for example, how much the employee or insured person can lift, how long he can walk or sit in a day, whether he can concentrate and for how long. The occupational expert then applies the work possibilities to tasks and responsibilities on the basis of this; then to activities and actions that must be performed for this. To this end, the occupational expert talks to the employee and his employer or benefits agency, and consults with the doctor. The occupational expert ultimately determines whether someone can still do his own work, possibly with adjustments to the function or with aids. And if that is not the case, it can be determined which activities the person is still expected to be able to do, so that suitable work can be found; with or without retraining

Lawyer

What you say about the company doctor is generally correct, but a workplace investigation is really carried out by the occupational expert.