Jörg Hofmann
The new and old IG Metall boss wants to continue to fight for a better retirement.
Berlin The newly re-elected IG Metall boss Jörg Hofmann draws in his keynote speech on Wednesday the very big picture: “Inequality is not a natural law of a global world, but the result of political action,” he calls the nearly 500 delegates at the trade union in Nuremberg. It is about climate protection, a clear edge against right-wing populism, uncontrolled financial markets and activist investors, who are up to mischief with industrial groups.
The 63-year-old union boss has to prove that he has a vision for Germany’s largest union after receiving only 71 percent of the vote in his re-election the previous day. This deeply moved and hit him, as he had made clear before his speech in a sentimental address to the delegates.
Above all, the companies in the metal and electronics industry are interested in what they can expect from the old and new IG Metall boss in the coming collective bargaining round in the spring of next year. But there Hofmann is still covered: his union will “look responsibly at the beginning of the year, which requirement fits into the time,” he announces in Nuremberg.
Even if it is with Germany However, moderation is still not an issue for the IG Metall: “We will not be tempted to put on the glue track of wage moderation,” says Hofmann. If at the moment one of the economic conditions, then it is the stable domestic demand. “And it would be foolish to saw on this branch.”
But his union has always made demands “that fit into economic realities” – and they will do so in the coming year, said Hofmann. That, however, many employers should see differently. So had the IG metal despite the shortage of skilled workers in early 2018 enforced a collective bargaining agreement that gave more than a quarter of a million metal workers more free time.
Choice between money and leisure
And Hofmann does not want to let up on working time in the future either: parents of small children, employees with relatives in need of care or certain shift workers should have a choice between money and free time even if they only work part-time. Even mechanics or project workers promises the IG Metall boss self-determined working hours.
And so shortening the working hours for some does not mean stress and extra work for the others, Hofmann also thinks aloud about a minimum personal design in certain work areas. Compatibility of life and work was “not a fairy tale theme”, but a principle of operating and tariff policy of the IG metal,
The IG Metall calls for an increase in the statutory pension level, but also wants to fight at the collective level for a better pension. In North Rhine-Westphalia come a colleague in the corner wage group after 40 years of work on 1273 Euro pension. “Even if the pension level went up five percentage points, that’s not lush,” says Hofmann. An occupational retirement provision should therefore not remain a privilege for employees in large companies, but must be accessible to all: “We need more responsibility of employers for retirement!”
However, collective agreements can only have a broad impact if collective agreements apply in as many companies as possible. But here employers would steal responsibility, criticized the IG Metall boss. Of the more than 7200 member companies affiliated to the Gesamtmetall employers’ association, not even half are covered by collective bargaining.
The association also attributes abstinence to the fact that collective agreements have recently become more and more expensive and, above all, more complex, and that is why small businesses in particular feel overwhelmed.
Employer President Ingo Kramer or All-Metal President Rainer Dulger are therefore campaigning for “modular” collective agreements, from which companies can select the right components for them.
No raisin picking
However, the IG Metall boss issued a clear refusal to this request: “We do not need raisin picking,” he says. Employers should stop talking about collective bargaining agreements that are too expensive and over-hyped that they themselves have signed.
However, collective bargaining would then have to bring real benefits: Therefore, the reference clauses were abolished, with which even non-tariff companies could benefit from what employers and union had negotiated together. “If you want the benefits of a tariff, you have to be a member.”
In addition to the fight for more collective bargaining, which the legislature is to flank by collective bargaining arrangements and the collective after-effects of collective agreements in business splits and spin-offs, the IG Metall boss also wants to anchor a co-determination offensive in the work program for the next four years.
“Without the Montanmitbestimmung would be Thyssen-Krupp Today, a victim of financial investors and tomorrow exploited to the bone, “Hofmann is convinced. As a sign of lived economic democracy was once the Montanmitbestimmung in key industries such as coal and steel was created.
Today, there are other key industries, such as vehicle manufacturing, IT or power plant construction, which are increasingly dominated and driven by international financial investors. “We do not want, like Kevin Kühnert, the nationalization of BMW demand, “calls Hofmann. But democracy needs a balance of work and capital.
“And so we demand that the codetermination law is finally developed into a real co-determination, which does not find its limit in the second vote of the capital representative.” Not the course on the capital market should determine whether closed locations, laid off employees, parts of the company were sold, but the sustainable development of the company must be the focus.
This is even more true given the expected changes due to digitization and the change in traffic. Employees would need to be recruited or retrained for new jobs. The IG Metall had therefore enforced a so-called part-time education in the penultimate round of bargaining. What is missing, however, is a reasonable financial security of the exemption for educational purposes: “Therefore, we demand from the employer and legislators models with compensation.”
Hofmann receives only mild applause when he talks about temporary workers. In the transformation all employees would have to have prospects for good work, says the IG Metall boss. He did not want to accept that thousands of contract workers would simply be logged off without checking if there were alternatives.
But the Metallers know very well that in case of a downturn or structural change, it is then directly to the core workforce, if there are no temporary workers.
If the utilization goes back, then the working time accounts would have to be emptied first, before it comes to short-time working. And if that is not enough, then it could be talked about working time reduction without pay. The temporary workers, who usually have to go first, Hofmann mentions at this point not a word.
More: The fat years of IG Metall are over, says Handelsblatt correspondent Frank Specht,