In the run-up to Germany's general elections in September 1998, both trade unions and employers' associations are trying to exert influence on the forthcoming election debates. While the unions are demanding a fundamental shift in German politics and giving more or less open support to the opposition parties, the employers' associations have expressed their wish to continue with the politics of the current Government.
On 27 September 1998, German voters have to decide whether they want to continue with the current governing coalition of the Christian Democratic Party (Christlich Demokratische Partei, CDU) and the Free Democratic Party (Freie Demokratische Partei, FDP) or prefer a change in power to the opposition parties, in particular the Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokartische Partei, SPD) and Alliance 90/The Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen). Since current German politics are becoming more and more overshadowed by the forthcoming general elections, even the social partners' organisations are trying to exert political influence. In February/March 1998, trade unions and employers' associations issued their own policy demands for a new government and began to criticise the election programmes of the political parties.
The trade unions' election campaign
In February 1998 the German Federation of Trade Unions (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB) launched it's 1998 election campaign for Employment and social justice (Arbeit und soziale Gerechtigkeit). The central aim of this campaign is to make employment the number-one issue in the election debates. Therefore, the DGB will spend about DEM 8 million on various promotion activities such as placing advertisements in the media, putting up posters and organising public discussion meetings.
The content of the DGB election campaign, based on its Action programme for employment and social justice, was adopted in March 1997 and is seen as the unions' political platform for the next few years. The basic assumption of this document is that the current policy of the CDU/FDP Government has been proved to be unable to reduce the level of unemployment and that, therefore, a fundamental change in politics has become necessary. Since the trade unions insist on the possibility of halving unemployment in the next few years, the DGB demands include:
- an improvement of internal economic demand through a fairer distribution of income and wealth and new investment programmes in infrastructure and environmental needs;
- a more effective industrial and services policy with participation of the social partners;
- a better distribution of employment through differentiated initiatives for individual and collective working time reductions (reducing overtime, promoting part-time work and partial retirement, introduction of the 35 hour-week in all sectors);
- a modernisation and improvement of initial and continuing vocational training;
- more active public employment policy (in particular for long-term unemployed people and recipients of social assistance);
- reforms of social security system and a reduction of non-wage labour costs;
- a reform for a fairer tax system in social terms;
- the reintroduction of 100% continued payment of remuneration for employees in the event of illness (DE9709131F); and
- the reintroduction of stronger dismissals legislation for smaller companies.
For the implementation of such new policies, various trade union leaders have called for a renewal of a tripartite Employment Alliance (Bündnis für Arbeit) after the forthcoming elections. A first initiative for such an Alliance failed in early 1996 after the Government decided to cut social benefits, reduce the legal continued payment of remuneration in the case of illness from 100% to 80% of previous pay and deregulate dismissals legislation (DE9702202F).
The DGB election campaign has been strongly accused by representatives of the ruling CDU and FDP of giving one-sided support to the opposition parties and thereby violating the principle of "unified trade unionism" (Einheitsgewerkschaft) which in the German tradition means that the unions are not linked to any political party. Some CDU representatives demanded that CDU members within the trade unions should cut their membership fees in order to protest against the DGB election campaign.
The trade unions reject these criticisms by underlining that they are calling for a change in politics but not recommending voting for a particular party. The leader of the IG Metall metalworkers' union, Klaus Zwickel, stated that there is currently no political party which can ensure that employment and social justice will stand at the centre of their politics. This means that even with a possible SPD-led government there might be considerable conflict with the unions.
However, traditionally many German trade union leaders are at the same time members of the SPD. The leader of the IG Bau Agrar Umwelt construction workers' union, Klaus Wiesehügel, will even be an SPD candidate for parliament (Bundestag). On the other hand, even Hermann Lutz, the leader of the police trade union (Gewerkschaft der Polizei, GdP), who is the only CDU member among 13 DGB trade union leaders, has supported the DGB election campaign and its demand for a change in politics.
Joint declaration by employers' and business organisations
On 10 March 1998, the leading employers' and business organisations - the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (Bundesvereinigung der deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände, BDA), the Confederation of German Industries (Bundesverband der deutschen Industrie, BDI), the German Association of Chambers of Commerce (Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag, DIHT) and the Central Association of German Crafts (Zentralverband des Deutschen Handwerks, ZDH) - signed a joint declaration on "economic and social policy in the next election period". In this document, the peak organisations of German business demand "a continuation of the reform policy of the current government". The employers state that under the ruling CDU/FDP coalition there has been some substantial progress during the last few years in economic and social policy for the improvement of German competitiveness. However, under the conditions of economic globalisation there is a permanent need to change traditional structures and to become even more flexible. Employers' and business organisations therefore demand:
- a tax reform which reduces taxes for employers and for employees;
- a modernisation of the social security system by reducing public social security to a basic minimum level and strengthening private and company-based social security;
- a reduction of social security contributions from the current 42% of pay to below 38%;
- a further flexibilisation and differentiation of branch-level collective bargaining which should give the employers the opportunity for more company bargaining on flexible working time arrangements and differentiated wages and salaries;
- pay increases below the increase of productivity in order to use the additional productivity growth for the creation of new employment;
- a modernisation and improvement of initial and continuing vocational training; and
- consolidation of the state deficit, further privatisation of public services and reduction of public subsidies.
Furthermore, the employers' and business organisations state that "an abolition of already enforced policy reforms would intensify structural problems, prevent investments and destroy employment." With this latter point, they are expressing their strong criticism of the SPD election programme, in which the Social Democrats have announced that they would repeal the CDU/FDP initiatives on social security, continued payment of remuneration in the event of illness, dismissal legislation and bad-weather allowances. The president of the BDA, Dieter Hundt, has explicitly criticised the draft SPD election programme for "lacking competence in economic policy" and "contradicting the interests of German business".
According to the DGB, the employers' declaration displays one-sided support for the CDU/FDP Government, which proves the fact that current politics in Germany are primarily related to business interests. Indeed, many representatives of employers' and business organisations are members of the CDU or FDP parties. For example, the general secretary of the BDA, Reinhard Göhner, is at the same time representing the CDU as a member of the Bundestag.
Commentary
Against the background of the forthcoming general elections, the social partners' organisations are trying to exert their political influence on the election debates. It is no surprise that - as it has always been the case in Germany - the employers' associations are more or less openly supporting the ruling CDU/FDP coalition, while the trade unions are aiming for a shift in political power to the SPD.
According to recent polls the SPD seems to have a real chance of winning the elections after 16 years of opposition. Thereby, Germany would follow the current European trend to Social Democratic-led governments. Regardless of whether the SPD comes to power or Germany continues with the CDU/FDP coalition, the social partner's organisations will adjust themselves to the new political situation anyway. Until election day, however, major initiatives to solve Germany's fundamental social and economic problems seem to be very unlikely. (Thorsten Schulten, Institute for Economics and Social Science (WSI))