German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/181, pp. 23574-23575.
Valued colleagues.
In this place, I greet all people in Germany who work hard and produce something significant. The members of the Linke group do not belong to that. You have the impudence to here again present for discussion a motion which this plenary session has already rejected, word for word – it’s about your motion in Drucksache 20/6885.
Matthais W.
Birkwald (Linke): You did not find the distinction!
And that allows a deep look over your diligence and your intellectual depth, right honorable ladies and gentlemen.
Yet I again gladly explain to you why your demands which you have made are complete nonsense. You demand an action plan for strengthening the collective bargaining [Tarifbindung] in Germany. First: Collective bargaining is of course a good. We want that people have wage contracts, that they ultimately have a secure work relationship. That is certainly in everyone’s interest.
Yet we should not base that on an EU guideline. Quite honestly, the European Union has absolutely nothing to do with wage rate law. Just because some EU commissioner up there in Brussels thinks that some action plan should be developed for a collective bargaining quota of under 80 percent, we still need develop no action plan; since the European Union has nothing at all to do with that, ladies and gentlemen. That, you should for once understand.
And generally, is it then significant to declare generally binding wage rate contracts? For starters, your argument that more is earned with collective bargaining than without is already false. We have heard differing numbers. In your motion, you write it is 36 percent more; Herr Dieron said something like 12 percent. In fact, one arrives, when the numbers are cleared up, at 2 to 6 percent which the people earn more with wage rate contracts than without collective bargaining.
Frank
Bsirske (Greens): Sorry nonsense!
So far, it makes no great difference.
Primarily, it is nevertheless thus far significant for Germany as a business venue to preserve the coalition’s freedom, as a general obligation of course would also make possible excessive resolutions and thereby endanger the business venue of Germany. We also require competition by businesses not bound by collective bargaining so that the resolutions remain rational, ladies and gentlemen.
For exactly that reason is it also quite dangerous to set aside the mechanism which we in fact have in regards the declaration of general obligation of wage rate contracts. Here it is certain that employee and employer representatives in common need to present a motion. In a wage rate committee, it will again be examined in regards the national economy, and then released or not by the Federal Ministry for Labor and Social Affairs. You want to abolish this system so that the employee representatives can even go and demand: We now want a 300 euros per hour wage for our employees. Ladies and gentlemen, I can say to you: For 300 euros per hour, then absolutely no one works, because the position no longer exists, because the employers are then simply no longer able to afford this wage. It first needs to be earned, what one is then paid in wages. This basic course in economics once again needs be given to the Linke, ladies and gentlemen.
The solution is fully another one. The labor unions for that very reason still lose members, because they have become purely lifestyle unions, because they concern themselves with some LGBTQIA+ things, yet not in the interests of the workers, ladies and gentlemen.
Frank Bsirske (Greens): That is clueless! You are clueless! You have no idea at all! I’m sorry! Nothing other!
Martin Reichardt (AfD): That’s
quite true for the Greens in the Bundestag! There they sit, the over-the-hill
labor union bosses!
We now simply need to bring down the taxes, we need to bring down the duties for the businesses! Out of the socio-ecological transformation! Do you know how the wages then may rise? That, you simply cannot imagine, Herr Bsirske. Madness!
Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Herr Kleinwächter.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
