What is work worth and what will tomorrow’s work look like? That should also be the focus of the numerous May rallies and festivals today. The DGB has specific demands – and the support of the Minister of Labor.
“Unbroken solidarity” – this is the title of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) for its traditional appeal for May 1st.
“The important and special thing is that everyone has now felt that the inflation of the past year has burned a big hole in their wallets,” says DGB boss Yasmin Fahimi, explaining what is important to her this year. That’s why it’s now about “how we will ensure in the future that there are more collective agreements, more collective wages for everyone”.
Because Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) also sees it that way, he wants to introduce a law on collective bargaining compliance before the end of this year. State orders should then only go to companies that pay according to the tariff. Adherence to tariffs should therefore be worthwhile.
Heil: “It’s also about changing work”
Heil wants to appear in two places this year on May 1st: in Wolfsburg and in Bremerhaven. “It’s not just a good tradition, it’s not just about the value of work. May 1st is also about the dignity of work and especially at this time about the change in work, so that today’s employees can also have a chance to do tomorrow’s work.”
Tomorrow’s work will be different for many people – for example for tens of thousands who still produce parts for combustion engines or work in other areas that stand in the way of climate goals. Instead, they are used in crafts – and in the case of renewable energies anyway.
Funding for location loyalty?
Steffen Kampeter from the employers’ association BDA reminds us that major changes can cause unrest and even riots. “We don’t want French conditions as a result of the transformation, but we want the social partnership model to master this challenge as well,” he says. “That is also our mission as an employer in this area.” The employers need the unions for this: to find socially acceptable and accepted solutions.
The Left Party adopts a different tone: With the May slogan “We can no longer afford the rich,” it advocates, among other things, a wealth tax.
The CDU MP Axel Knoerig, as chairman of his parliamentary group’s workers’ group, tends to support the demands of the DGB. The idea of tying corporate aid to the expansion of renewable energies to loyalty to a location “deserves a really serious debate,” he says – so that investors don’t pocket subsidies and then get away with it as soon as possible.
membership numbers keep sinking
With all the changes in the world of work, the DGB sees an increase in the confidence of the workforce in this country, even if the number of members is still falling slightly – to around five and a half million people in the meantime. Today many of them will demonstrate or celebrate.
Labor Minister Heil stressed that it was “not about nostalgia, it was about the future of work”. And there will still be plenty of opportunities to demonstrate unbroken solidarity.