PRESS STATEMENT IG Metall on retirement at age 68

Dr. Hans-Jürgen Urban, Executive Board Member of IG Metall:

“Demographic catastrophe, lower pension benefits, higher retirement age. That’s the same old refrain that deserves little attention from a technical standpoint. Politically, however, it’s highly explosive. It stokes intergenerational conflict. The political parties should distance themselves as quickly as possible from such approaches, which drive the social divide between young and old, and instead seek solutions based on solidarity.

The self-appointed advocates for the young are poor advisors. Anyone who cuts baby boomers’ pensions and raises the retirement age is doing the next generations a disservice. Because their pensions, too, will be reduced, and their retirement ages will also be unrealistically high. Anyone who refuses to accept this pension gap will have to make expensive and risky private provisions. In the name of so-called intergenerational justice, both the young and the old lose out.”

Further information and press photos of Dr. Hans-Jürgen Urban