Press Release No. 38/2015 IG Metall Calls for Further Social Reforms and Criticizes the Deregulation Push by...

Berlin – IG Metall has called for further social reforms. “The federal government must not stop halfway. The minimum wage and retirement at age 63 are important first steps. However, this does not solve the structural problems in the labor market and in the pension system,” said Hans-Jürgen Urban, executive board member of IG Metall, at a conference on labor and social policy held Friday in Berlin with State Secretary Torben Albrecht, as well as works council members, representatives from politics, and academics.

“The decline in pension levels must be stopped. If decades of contribution payments result in a pension that is only slightly above the basic income support level, this will lead to massive provision problems for future generations and, at the same time, undermine public acceptance of the statutory pension insurance system,” said Urban. IG Metall will continue its “Good Work – Good Retirement” campaign and advocate for a fundamental reform of the pension system. The focus will be on stabilizing and raising pension levels.

Urban also criticized business lobbyists and employers’ associations for their intention to use the new opportunities presented by digitalization to launch a deregulation offensive. “The Confederation of German Employers’ Associations is dreaming of the utopia of unprotected labor,” said Urban. Anyone seeking to promote the widespread and socially unprotected use of temporary agency work and contract labor—and to slash the statutory maximum limits on daily working hours—is acting neither economically rationally nor in a manner compatible with the welfare state. “Digital Work 4.0 is incompatible with the labor and social standards of Work 1.0 from the early days of capitalism,” Urban emphasized. “If the new information superhighways continue to accelerate the pace of everyday work, then stable safety nets for employees must be put in place through regulatory policies aimed at humanizing the workplace.” In this context, modern occupational safety is inconceivable without an anti-stress regulation.