Press Release No. 19/2017 IG Metall Criticizes Breach of Coalition Agreement on Fixed-Term Part-Time Work and ...

Frankfurt am Main – IG Metall has sharply criticized the failure to reach an agreement on fixed-term part-time work and the right to return to full-time work in the coalition committee. The draft bill introduced by Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Andrea Nahles was blocked yesterday in the coalition committee. “This is a clear breach of the agreements reached in the coalition agreement between the CDU/CSU and the SPD and a glaring failure on the part of the governing coalition,” said Jörg Hofmann, First Chairman of IG Metall, on Thursday in Frankfurt. He added that the coalition had allowed itself to be “bullied” by the interests of the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA) and had caved in.

There is no explanation for why the right to return from part-time to full-time work should apply only to companies with 200 or more employees. “All part-time employees must have a modern right to return to full-time work in order to be able to reliably plan their livelihoods,” emphasized Christiane Benner, Second Chair of IG Metall. As a result of this decision, 10.3 million employees—many of them women—will remain trapped in part-time work.