She reports that the “head of Verdi, one of Germany’s biggest unions, started lobbying employers to let their employees off early months ago.” Just for a moment contemplate the idea of a union in our churning nonstop US economy trying to influence businesses to let employees go home early in order to watch the World Cup.
Kinkhabwala is pleading her case to be let off for the month because her boss will not have to pay her insurance premium because a Dutch company is “issuing policies to employers who are bound to suffer significant increases in people calling in sick.” The idea is not so far fetched considering during the 2004 European Championships, absenteeism in Holland rose 20 percent.
Research is actually being conducted during the World Cup in Germany with “researchers so sure pulling people away from their TVs could be scary, they're getting blood samples from every heart attack victim over the next month in Germany. They're looking for stress hormones that clot blood.”
Heart attacks in England increased by 25 percent on the day and the day after the 1998 Cup loss to Argentina in a penalty shootout. Insurers might want to make a slight increase in premiums every four years considering the consistent health challenges.
Watching the US-Ghana game was heart wrenching enough to understand the world’s health connections to the World Cup.
This situation is probably getting some replay now, as we lead into the Finals of the Rugby World Cup (third biggest sporting event in the world, after the Soccer World Cup and the Olympics). I think that companies might want to see if they can avoid similar insurance payments for the impending absenteeism in England and South Africa.
Jerry
www.leads4insurance.com
Posted by: Jerry | October 15, 2007 9:02 PM | Permalink to Comment