German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/186,
pp. 23508-23509.
Right honorable Frau President. Worthy colleagues. Dear
viewers at the TV sets.
The colleagues of the FDP lay before us a motion in which
they want to take into ready account the development in the labor market. Their
assertion, “Digitalization is not only one of the most important drivers of
growth of the present economic development, but also an engine of social
transformation and change in the world of work”, nevertheless indicates a
striking mis-estimate of the situation. Since the holy cow of “digitalization”
has some by-products which for the labor market are unfortunately extremely
toxic. I know that the FDP wishes to especially distinguish itself here. But like
everything in life, digitalization also has two sides; namely, light and shadow.
The light, in this case the possibility of a home office, gave
many people during the first lockdown the opportunity to work. There is here –
I concur with the FDP – a need to expand and to adapt legal regulations. The
shadow cast by digitalization is nevertheless significantly greater than the
just mentioned light. Digitalization transforms. However, the small office
expert in the large organization will be transformed not into an IT skilled
worker but into one of the unemployed.
As stated in a study by the ING-DiBa, there are in Germany
about 3.5 million office workers and assistants in related occupations; around
3 million of these workplaces are in the mid-term endangered by advancing
digitalization. The study sees similar developments in other occupational
fields. In regards the total 30 million social insurance obligated and marginal
employees, the authors of the study expect just over 18 million of the studied
workplaces in Germany to be in danger. That is 59 percent of the German labor
market which is endangered, mid- and long-term.
Matthias W.
Birkwald (Linke): There are any number of studies!
If I am directly concerned with the results of studies: – I do
not know whether you know this, Herr Birkwald – The consulting firm of
PricewaterhouseCoopers has reported that for Great Britain the home office
could be the origin of a total economic damage to the sum of 16.7 billion euros.
For when workers increasingly work in a home office, that has effects upon the
value creation chain and the corresponding eco-system of a business in the
offices of the larger firms. That pertains to the restaurant trade for which
the workers so far primarily have been supplied at mid-day, those in retail
trade, transport businesses as well as gas stations for commuters, facility
management, etc., etc.
As you in your motion correctly state, the Corona crisis has
contributed to the acceleration of digitalization. Yet no beautiful, new world
of work arises, as your motion suggests, but a scenario which has unintended
consequences for the labor market and society in general and for the individual
employee and his family circumstances in particular.
Matthias W.
Birkwald (Linke): Thus back to tablet and stylus?
Beate Müller-Gemmeke (Greens):
The AfD wants to advance tele-work.
The mixing of work and private life – something, besides,
which over 50 percent of home office workers evaluate negatively – is a
problem. Which you in your motion regard through rose-red spectacles. Clearly,
it might appear to be sensible or a relief for one or other workers to be able
to take care of family and children during the day – but at what price?
In reality, the everyday still appears thus: 6 o’clock in
the morning call up the e-mail, then get the kids to day-care or school, two or
three hours on the laptop, prepare lunch, pick up the kids, attend to the
household chores, meanwhile yet again the laptop to clear up the work, get the
kids ready for bed and until late at night finish up the work for the firm – in
my eyes, no family-friendly perspective.
I come to an end, Frau President. – For that, you, dear FDP, wish to weaken working hours guidelines and in place of a daily maximum work time fix an identical weekly maximum work time. You thereby open the doors to a 24/7, round-the-clock, constant availability. Your motion is in need of being discussed in committee with the expected draft law from the House of Hubertus Heil, the draft for the mobile work law, so as to be brought into harmony with labor protection and labor protection regulations.
Thank you.
[trans: tem]
