In May, Yasmin Fahimi becomes the first woman to become the head of the powerful German trade union federation. What she demands from the federal government – and how she wants to prevent masses of well-paid jobs from disappearing.
Interviewed by
Alexander Hageluken and Benedikt Peters
A storm is brewing in front of the Bundestag, Yasmin Fahimi, 54, is sitting inside and looks pretty tidy. She intends to resign her mandate for the SPD when she takes over the presidency of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) from Reiner Hoffmann in May. The DGB is the largest umbrella organization of individual trade unions in Germany with around six million members. The former SPD general secretary and state secretary in the Ministry of Labor spent a good hour talking about what she intends to do with the unions and how she intends to put pressure on the federal government in the future.