Leipzig – Jörg Hofmann, President of IG Metall, sees a need for sustainable industrial development in Eastern Germany. “The transition to the digital workplace must also be leveraged to drive innovation and strengthen Eastern Germany as a business location. Eastern German companies must no longer be mere extensions of West German corporations,” Hofmann said at a works council conference on Tuesday in Leipzig. This requires self-confident workforces and assertive works councils, as well as strong collective bargaining coverage. Digitalization, he noted, marks the second major upheaval in eastern Germany within just one generation. It must not lead to a division of society between winners and losers.
At the conference on Tuesday and Wednesday, 200 employee representatives from eastern Germany are discussing collective bargaining coverage, the digital transformation, ecological structural change, and how to address right-wing extremism in eastern Germany. Tomorrow, Federal Minister of Economics Peter Altmaier will address the works council members.
Hofmann pointed out that works councils play a key role in securing jobs and business locations, as well as in driving innovation. “Many of the flagship companies of East German industrial production still exist today only because workforces, works councils, and unions fought to preserve them.”
To give industry in eastern Germany better prospects, policymakers also bear a responsibility, said Wolfgang Lemb, executive board member of IG Metall. “We need a strategy to encourage companies to invest more heavily in local sites again.” This requires different framework conditions, such as targeted industrial, economic, and subsidy policies, more public investment in research and development, and the expansion of collective bargaining coverage. In Lemb’s view, greater collective bargaining coverage is the most important prerequisite for the long-overdue harmonization of working and living conditions in western and eastern Germany.
A sustainable, pan-German subsidy system in industrial policy is urgently needed because the EU plans to reduce its budget and cut funding for structural support. Lemb: “It is unacceptable that these budget cuts could hit regions in eastern Germany particularly hard.”
The conference will also feature the presentation of the “Together. Committed. Courageous. For a Bright Future” award. This award recognizes exceptional commitment to fostering respect, solidarity, tolerance, and justice. The recipient is Uwe Lippmann, a metalworker and works council chair at the company Werkö in Königssee near Erfurt. Lippmann embodies two key qualities of works council members: “He is communicative and adept at handling conflict, enabling him to effectively represent the interests of the workforce,” said IG Metall Chairman Hofmann in his laudatory speech. Thanks to Lippmann’s efforts, the company has rejoined the employers’ association and is now bound by collective bargaining agreements. Lippmann is also committed to supporting refugees and opposing nationalism and xenophobia. The award comes with a cash prize of 1,000 euros, and the recipient also receives a small sculpture.
