When Hubertus Heil enters the stage between the Reichstag building and the Spree on Friday morning, he looks pretty cheerful. This may be due to the morning sun, which at eight-thirty is just high enough to gild the east facade of the parliament building. Or because the coalition negotiations in his working group are going well. Presumably, however, he is simply amused that the presenter has just introduced him as the “Acting Federal Chairperson for Labor and Social Affairs”. Something like that can happen when you join IG Metall as a social democrat.
It is noisy on this October morning in the government district. The union estimates that around 500 metal workers have gathered. They drum, rattle and trumpet. Ships pass by on the river, with unionists waving flags on the deck and banners on the railing. With a day of action in several cities, the metal workers want to make it clear to the potential traffic light government how they imagine this socio-ecological market economy that everyone is talking about. The mining, chemical and energy industrial union has also called for action.
While the provisional labor minister Heil listens to the head of the IG Metall shop stewards at the Daimler plant in Berlin-Marienfelde, who speaks of the fact that “every workplace is being put to the test” at the production site founded in 1902 because of the departure from the combustion engine, it becomes clear: There is unrest among the organized workforce with a view to this traffic light, which is to be negotiated in Berlin.
It’s not a miracle. The banners of the metal workers reveal where they come from. Eisenhüttenstadt steel works, Leipzig Porsche works, Hennigsdorfer electrical steel works, Vulkan Energiewirtschaft Oderbrücke, Siemens gas turbines. Anyone who works in these industries has good reason to think about one or the other when red-green-yellow wants to comply with the debt brake and raise hundreds of billions of euros for the investments that are necessary for the conversion to a climate-neutral industry.
The key words can be found in the exploratory paper of the traffic light negotiators
And then there are other issues that are at the heart of the trade unions: social reforms. They should help – against tight pensions, child poverty and a social crash. For example, when the change to a climate protection country costs your own job. According to their election programs, the SPD and the Greens had big plans in terms of social policy – and the FDP also wanted to make a difference. In the exploratory paper of the traffic light negotiators, the keywords for the major projects can also be found, namely citizens’ benefits, basic child benefits and pension security.
The citizens’ money should replace the much hated Hartz system, should bring together social benefits, reduce bureaucracy, function with fewer penalties. Such is the direction that can be read from the demands of the traffic light parties (even if the Greens do not use the term at all). In particular, Bürgergeld sounds better than Hartz IV. Is it really different? “What is in the exploratory paper is largely similar to the basic security, it is not a revolution,” says Enzo Weber, economics professor at the Nuremberg Institute for Employment Research (IAB).
After all, concrete changes have been recorded, so the traffic light partners want to improve the opportunities for additional income. That would mean that more people will receive government support than before, even if they have low incomes. “Generous additional earnings can be very expensive,” says Weber. “That quickly adds up to billions of dollars.”
It is similar with basic child benefits. Here, too, the idea is to bundle the scattered social benefits for children and to spare parents the form war. Green leader Annalena Baerbock had vehemently advertised the model in the election campaign as the instrument against child poverty. On Friday, the economic research institute Ifo presented a study on behalf of the Greens that calculated their models. Result: Basic child benefits would cost between 27 and 33 billion euros. The result sounded like an echo from another era. Namely from the time before the traffic light negotiators decided not to increase taxes and to comply with the debt brake.
The traffic light explorers had already made concessions. Originally, the Greens wanted to pay 290 euros a month for every child, rich and poor. The exploratory paper now says that basic child benefits should come, but focus on the children “who need the most support”. “In principle, this is already being done today with benefits such as child allowance,” says Weber. The focus on poorer children reduces costs – and yet it will be interesting to see what remains of the plans, given the scope in the household.
That leaves the pension, where Olaf Scholz ascribes successes for the SPD: The minimum pension level should remain at 48 percent, the pensions must not fall, the retirement age must not rise further, not beyond 67 years. Around 100 billion euros are already flowing annually from the federal budget into the pension fund, if the contributions to the pension insurance are not to continue to rise, then this sum will continue to grow. The president of the DIW economic research institute, Marcel Fratzscher, spoke on Deutschlandfunk on Friday of a “fatal development” that the federal government would have to spend tens of billions more. Another major item that needs to be financed.
And Fratzscher said something else, particularly important against old-age poverty are well-paid jobs without “gaps”, that is, without long periods of unemployment. Which brings you back to the Reichstag, where the metalworker boss Jörg Hofmann demands a “security promise” from Hubertus Heil, i.e. no dismissals due to transformation until 2030.
Theo Geßner and Michael König wear neon yellow vests with the inscription “Steel has a future”. Above it is printed in small letters: “Go Green”. The two men work in the Eisenhüttenstadt steelworks, which belongs to Arcelor-Mittal. Green steel, based on hydrogen, that is the great hope of your industry. It is probably the only one. “We want to fight for our job,” says Geßner, 23, who has been working in the steelworks for five years and completed his training there. There is a lot of talk among the workforce about what the next government could do with its industry. König, 32 years old and in the business for 16 years, is worried. With their production in Eisenhüttenstadt, they are far away, “and we are just a little light in our large company. If something doesn’t happen there, I’ll tell you, it’ll be difficult.” And politics, salvation’s promise that you could rely on a possible Chancellor Scholz and the SPD? “Yes, you can always tell a lot. But you just have to see whether it is actually implemented.”
Heil is already gone. The working group is probably calling.