René
Springer
European
Dispatched Employees
German
Bundestag, May 29, 2020, Plenarprotokoll 19/164, pp. 20408-20409
[René Springer is an Alternative für
Deutschland Bundestag member from the eastern German state of Brandenburg. He
is an electrician and navy veteran and here responds to the government’s
introduction of a draft law concerning trans-national employment in the
European Union.]
Herr
President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
If two bricklayers work on the same
wall for two different wages, one for 4 DM, the other for 23 DM, then either
one will be cheated out of his fair wage or the other…will be out of a job.
And,
Herr Schummer, you said it well. Those words come from a time when this country
still had a realistic labor minister. Those are the words of Norbert Blum. He
spoke them in 1995 at the time of the reading of the first Dispatched Employees
Law [Arbeitnehmer Entsendegestzes],
and he had a clear purpose: To defend employees against wage and social
dumping.
We
have also heard it here today: When it comes to this demand, the FDP catches
its breath. It is even in the title of your motion: “Simplify Foreign Dispatching
and Oppose Protectionism”.
Thus,
for you, the defense against wage and social dumping is protectionism,
Christian Dürr (FDP): That is
rubbish, what you are saying!
which
you want to oppose; yet, basically, you are opposing the rights of employees.
We
of the AfD delegation are certainly not against this protectionism
Christian Dürr (FDP): You fight side
by side with the Linke party!
but
we are for a healthy social protectionism – which we need. We want the
employees in Germany to receive equal pay for equal work when they are active
in the same location; that is obvious and basically that also by far appears to
be the consensus.
Yet
let us look at the reality. In 2008, standing beside one another at the work
bench, a German and a Romanian employee earned pretty much the same. The
difference was about 21 euros. Today the Romanian employee earns 1,000 euros
less than his German colleague, not in a year but in a month.
In
the last ten years, the number of EU employees in the low-wage sector climbed
from 25 to 40 percent, and that is the result of an uncontrolled freedom of
movement in the EU, and from that arises an injustice crying to heaven which
harms our domestic employees and yet also the colleagues from other countries
as well.
Christian Dürr (FDP): National Socialists!
How,
please, “National Socialists”? Was that a reference to me or the AfD?
Christian Dürr (FDP): National Socialists!
Herr
President, I hope you have taken note of that. Thank you.
Carsten Schneider (SPD-Erfurt): He’s
right about that!
Good.
Then please take note of that also.
With
the draft law presented by the government, the problem is basically
acknowledged, yet managed as always –
Carsten Schneider (SPD-Erfurt): He does not always
speak correctly about everything, but he was right about that!
Oh,
good. He confirms that again. Thanks.
Carsten Schneider (SPD-Erfurt): Take
a look at your program!
I
come again to the law. The draft law takes notice of the problem but does not
solve this problem because basically the EU guidelines which are the subject of
the draft law advance Brussels’s rather our national interests, which would
steadily defend our employees here. – Thank you, Norbert.
I
want in this place to come to speak perhaps on one point, because we recently
spoke a great deal about working conditions in the meatpacking industry, as
well as last year – we remember the Christmas debate – over the situation in
the packaging industry. And then here stand a minister and politicians –
politicians from the SPD, politicians from the CDU – who criticize that as a
whole. And it must be simply stated for once, that the SPD in the last 22
years, 18 years, for long provided the minister responsible for that. I ask
myself, how can it actually be, that after 18 years of government
responsibility, there was nothing to solve the problem? It must for once be
stated that it is not only the EU that has a structural deficit. It must also
be plainly said that the SPD has a structural deficit. You are fundamentally
not in a position to manage social policy.
With
that, I am grateful. We are listening.
[Translated by Todd Martin]
