Norbert Kleinwächter, July 4, 2024, Collective Bargaining

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]

René Springer, June 12, 2024, Social Benefits Abuse

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/174, pp. 22520-22521. 

Frau President. Right honorable colleagues. Dear guests. 

Before us lies a motion of my delegation [Drucksache 20/11745] with which we pursue the goal of opposing abuse of social benefits. We demand immediate measures against commuter migration. What is commuter migration? Nothing other than social tourism. That means that foreigners come here to Germany, apply for Bürgergeld and other social benefits, then return home, and there do with the money as always; all of this at the cost of the German taxpayers. 

If the Social Ministry is asked, then one gets either the answer: “There is no problem”, or: “It is a matter of quite few single cases”. We however do not believe in single cases; for one, because we no longer at all believe this Federal government, and for another, because massive evidence says otherwise. 

Since 2016, there are media reports of Syrians, who have a protection status here in Germany, drawing social benefits and yet then driving home on vacation. Recently, the Münchener Merkur reported on a Algerian of 56 years who lived in Bavaria, drew social benefits – namely, Bürgergeld – then had gone to Algeria and forgot to report to a job center. He received 13,900 euros. The Welt recently reported on a married couple from Nigeria, who lived for years in Nigeria and received Bürgergeld, and in fact 33,000 euros. The Focus recently reported on a Ukrainian family who came to Germany seeking protection, then however returned home and there received 40,000 euros in Bürgergeld. 

            Markus Kurth (Greens): Then inquire at the job centers there!

Every day, 50 flex busses drive from Berlin to Kiev. One needs be crazy to believe that not a single one of the 723,000 Ukrainians receiving Bürgergeld sits therein. 

With this government, and with you here in hall, there is no motivation to oppose social tourism. You lead this country like a banana republic, that is the problem. 

            Marian Schieder (SPD): We want to oppose corruption of members!

An AfD-led government would effectively prevent the social tourism. How would we do that? By increasing the degree of contact at the job centers and indeed by a personal audition every four weeks. We would introduce an identity test by means of a finger-printing procedure, and it is an absurdity that there has not been that up to today. I get letters from job center workers who report from Berlin-Kreuzberg. There, fully veiled women stand before them and say they are whoever, and the workers must believe that because it is not allowed to require the veil to be lifted. How shall it be possible to ascertain the identity? 

We demand in regards suspicion of absence to conduct a test search at home. We demand that the operators of long-distance bus lines be required to pass on passenger lists to the Federal police with which the job center can undertake inquiries there; the same applies besides for air travel to German airports. 

We demand in regards suspicion of unpermitted absence that the immediate stop of payments follows. We demand that in regards the confirmation of an unpermitted absence that not only the payment will be stopped, but all previously made payments be paid back, inclusive of costs of shelter. And should those in need of protection travel in a war area, from which they have ostensibly fled, then that means reimboursement of the social benefits; then that means also the withdrawal of the protection status and a ban on entry. Such people who exploit our social system have nothing to lose here. 

Honestly said, I was shocked at the committee sitting today. There, I had addressed the theme, the social politicians among us will recall. 

            Jens Teutrine (FDP): You did not! You did not speak!

All peek with big eyes and ask how can it be that, in EU comparison, so few Ukrainians are working here, yet so many Ukrainians are on Bürgergeld. I had asked whether not perhaps this is connected with the flex busses to Kiev. The Frau State Secretary’s answer – there she sits; she will be able to well remember – was accordingly: It is nevertheless self-evident that Ukrainians go home so as to look after things. And you also said: The SGB II [Social Code] also foresees a vacation. I thus can only say one thing to you: You do not oppose the social tourism, as we demand; you promote the social tourism. You are the problem in our country. 

I can only say one thing: Who comes to Germany and here draws social benefits, then goes on vacation, goes to a supposed war area, 

            Markus Kurth (Greens): “A supposed war area”? O Gott!

he has no claim to social benefits, he has no claim to protection, he does not belong in Germany, he belongs in his home and there he can remain. 

Many thanks for your attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

 

Harald Weyel, April 25, 2024, EU Opt-outs

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/166, pp. 21282-21283. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

It can naturally only be welcomed when, after a forced pause of almost half a century, Mitteleuropa again grows closer together. At the same time, we want to ask ourselves: What actually happened from 2004 to 2024, and why into this Mitteleuropa package, so to say, was also mixed Malta and Cyprus? In regards, Cyprus, it is certainly seen: That is an apple of discord. It is seen that the situation is in no case really pacified by the EU accession, but previously existing problems – fully financed – persist, perhaps even worsen, a solution set back at a far distance. That is also to be expected in regards an expansion by acceptance of additional countries in conflict. 

What has been experienced? In 2005, the EU referenda on the EU Constitution fell through in France and the Netherlands. Thus this inclination to a central state was similarly an addition. The accession countries could not unconditionally have its shelter because they of course had before them the EU of the 80s and 90s, and there was already enough to criticize. 

The constitution referenda failed. Nevertheless, in December 2009 further – in quotes – “improvement” was introduced with the Lisbon Treaty; namely, the assistance obligation of Article 42, paragraph 7, whereby each member has the obligation to do all in its extant power when another member is attacked. That in fact goes beyond the NATO assistance obligation of Article 5 of the NATO Treaty, in which mention is only made of doing all deemed necessary – thus ideally the provision of confetti for the victory parades which have been, ja, absent at all NATO undertakings in the last decades. 

            Christian Petry (SPD): That is sickening!

The economic and social effects have of course in part previously occurred; that is to say, investment flows by foreign investors, and by tourism and private investments. Primarily to be named is a pull of labor forces to the West, in part permanently. This labor migration is extensively replaced or supplemented by social migration to EU states, of which there is plainly more than at home. This is thus a rather negative development which is pursued or has been established. 

The EU monies which flowed in naturally have visible effects upon the infrastructure. And they were in part better invested than in the countries of the south. Thus, there, one sought to bestow superfluous golf courses and airports. It can be said that the new members invested better than many old members; in part, than many founding countries. I think of Italy. Nevertheless, these EU monies have harmed small business and especially small-scale agriculture, so far as it previously existed. 

And it is of course also to be observed that the thoroughly developed EU disease has spread to each new member country; namely, the politico-administrative complex has been fed – away from the productive economy, be it industry, be it commerce – into a party economy, to an over-dimensioned administration. All diseases of Brussels and the West were imported, have created a new class. That cannot really be seen as progress. 

Now these new member countries, especially those which have not yet accustomed themselves to all these abuses, can make a worthwhile contribution, exactly like the countries intent on acceptance; namely, an opt-out: An opt-out from the EU’s military adventurism; an opt-out from  a climate policy destructive of the environment; 

            Gunther Krichbaum (CDU/CSU): An opt-out from Russia!

an opt-out from a centrally planned agriculture and industrial policy, and a devastating foreign policy which only consists of boycotts and subventions; and an opt-out from a subsidized, treaty-violating, artificial currency. 

I thus come to a conclusion. Only so can the EU be basically, substantially and sensibly reformed. Only so can the uses of the expansion, or a contribution to the expected harms, be overcome. I thank all new and future members for assistance, particularly in regards this matter of a reform project. 

Thank you.

 

[trans: tem]

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, April 23, 2024, Pensions and the FDP

AfD Kompakt, April 23, 2024. 

That the reduction-free pension at 63 was an expensive election gift of the SPD to its – it needs be said, former – core voters is clear. Nevertheless, the problem is presently in abeyance, since alone the age limit is already continually pushed higher; for those born after 1964, to 65 years. What is overlooked by the entirety of these calculations: The focus on the fixed age limit is no longer suitable for today’s real life of employees. 

We of the AfD delegation demand more freedom and self-determination in regards pension entry. And to that pertains: 45 contribution years are enough. Who has collected this should also without a reduction be pensioned, which can but need not be at 63. To that extent, there is nothing “to abolish”. Only one thing is certain. No one should need to work longer than to 67 years. 

Concerning pensions, the FDP has never distinguished itself with especially original proposals which go beyond “we all need to work much longer”. To a pension reform belongs a socio-political concept and a solid financing. For both, the FDP has nothing to offer, which is seen in the fully under-financed “equities pension” [Aktienrente]. What the FDP now contributes to the pension at 63 is just more wind. “12 Point Plan”, that sounds snappy, only the question is: What has the FDP actually done in the last three years?

[trans: tem]

Kay Gottschalk, April 12, 2024, Tax Relief

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/164, pp. 21103-21104. 

Right honorable Frau President. Dear colleagues. Dear taxpayers in the gallery. 

            Katharina Beck (SPD): We’re taxpayers , too! 

And before all things: Dear tax kleptomaniacs – it cannot be otherwise said – of the Debts Coalition! 

I want to again help you on the point upon which we speak here today. We are speaking on that the minimum livelihood be made tax free. This besides results from the ability to pay [Leisitungsfähigkeit] principle. Okay, that is difficult for the Greens, – it cannot be quite comprehended there – yet for the SPD meanwhile also. 

I want to help you with the point of what the Constitutional Court said. We have today spoken so much of human dignity. The Constitutional Court actually derives this principle from the human  dignity. I cite with the permission of the president: 

It is accordingly not only not sensible when the state first takes from the citizen as tax a portion of his minimum livelihood, and afterwards returns the money to him in the form of support payments 

– as for example in the form of social assistance, housing money and many other things. It is besides a principle which this Debts Coalition manages for years: To take money away from people so as to refund to them a small portion. No, the Constitutional Court further states that, as a result of such proceedings, people who actually were in the condition to live independently were forced into the position of a supplicant to state offices. That reveals precisely your policy, my dear friends of the Debts Ampel. 

Yet let us come to the sobering numbers. Here, even the CDU has slumbered; the press here assembled has slumbered. The scandal of the Bürgergeld [citizens’ wage] increase on Januuary 1 of 12.1 percent, namely from 502 euros to 563 euros, occurred already on 1 January 2023. You of course then increased the basic allowance by merely 5.4 percent, while with the Bürgergeld introduction you just raised the old social assistance contribution from 449 euros to 502 euros; that is 11.8 percent. Reckoned as a basis percentage, you increased the Bürgergeld in not 15 months by around 25 percent. 

            Wolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn (Greens): That is falsified. That’s not right!                                 That is wrong!

And in regards the basic allowance, you have not managed an increase of 12 percent. That reveals you for what you are. To that I say: Phooey, that’s shameful, what you are doing! 

            Marianne Schieder (SPD): Na, na, na! Slow down!

 For nights, so to say, I checked that with the calculator and it certainly wasn’t difficult. You now hopefully have noted what we here demand – and Herr Lindner now partially, quite timidly – is only a drop on the hot stone. 

So as to support the same with facts, dear taxpayers up there: 

            (The speaker holds up a diagram)

From one euro – this is from the Taxpayers Union – remains 47.5 euros cents. 

            Vice-president Aydan Özoğuz: Herr member, in that regard, we have…

Print this!

             (The microphone is disconnected) 

            Herr member, I am speaking with you. 

            (Member Kay Gottschalk (AfD) continues to speak) 

            Herr member, is it then so difficult to pause for a second? 

But of course! 

I am simply attempting to bring to your attention that we here have an understanding to display no drawings and pictures. 

This is no picture. This is a graphic. 

            It was a graphic. Yet please refrain therefrom. 

Good. I do so in the future. Thank you for the reference. My party since 2019 has here brought in multiple motions and draft laws and therein demanded increasing the basic allowance, or to introduce the tax schedule on wheels [Tarif auf Rädern] which is even in some of the elections programs of parties which have been present here. You have refused all of this with threadbare reasonings and prefer to increase the Bürgergeld in the last 13 months by 25 percent. 

Your learning curve – it can, I believe, be stated – actually approaches asymptomatically the zero line. I hope that the voters at the next elections will correspondingly prepare a bill and make the X by the party which is really committed to the people who are working. 

On our motion [Drucksache 20/10975] is the program name: “Observe the Wage Difference Rule [Lohnabstandsgebot] – Relieve Wage-earners and Mittelstand”, and the basic allowance in fact clearly increase – I believe I’ve made clear why it must be – to 14,000 euros. It needs be said: Herr Lindner has a bad conscience, you not. He undertook a small project and wanted tax relief in the future for foreign employees in the first three years. At least he recognized: For real skilled labor, how I would define it, Germany is quite unattractive. Yet this also applies for the home employees, ladies and gentlemen of the FDP. Perhaps be honest for once! 

Herr Fuerst supports the whole, in which is stated in his study – I cite with permission of the President: "Who works full-time not always has more therefrom”, especially the people who earn between 4,000 euros and 5,500 euros and live in large cities; since then basic supplements and other supplements come to nothing. He calculated: When a labor force under this government changes from part-time to full-time, then it has 32 euros more. 

You thus see: Only one party here in the German Bundestag is really committed for the people. We stand for that working people do not meanwhile become supplicants of a socialist state, ladies and gentlemen. 

I am grateful for your attention. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, February 1, 2024, Scholz Government and Pensions

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/151, pp. 19276-19277. 

Frau President. Dear colleagues. Honored citizens. 

Germany is being passed down [Deutschland wird nach unten durchgereicht]: The economy shrinks, the bankruptcy wave rolls, and achievers in droves leave the country. The infrastructure collapses, the healthcare system is exhausted – to say nothing of the education system. 

That is the balance of a government which, quite alone, wants to save the world and the climate, and, for that and quite without necessity, destroys the foundations of existence of an industrial nation, which pumps billions into Bürgergeld, yet leaves nothing over for the employees, which sinks untold sums for ideological nonsense and, for that, is ready to squeeze the people to the last cent. 

How can that be? “Champagne for all!”, that was the Ampel’s deal: Children’s basic security for the SPD, climate fuss for the Greens, and “no tax increases” for the FDP. It could have been so nice. Instead, last year came the reckoning: Everything which the Ampel, it needs be said, has tricked together – none of it was constitutional. And even the budget, of which we here today speak, stands on shaky footing. 

Now, at the latest, it would be to announce a change of course, to say nothing of saving. Saving: That means – for those who do not know – to spend less money there where it need not be, so as to have it where it will be needed. 

            Takis Mehmet Ali (SPD): Yes, where then?

You unfortunately do the opposite. You raise the taxes on CO₂ and benzine, you raise the trucking fee, and you raise the taxes for the restaurant trade. 

            Takis Mehmet Ali (SPD): Yet you just said we should save!

You take the farmers hostage and beyond that demand still higher taxes for meat. Then it is only for the rich. What a glorious idea! 

And what you promised as a relief for the citizens – construction help, heating help, climate money – that slips away. There never was the money for that. 

Yet – und das ist gut so – the citizens begin to understand. The money is certainly not gone, it is just elsewhere. Suddenly, there is talk in the streets of bike paths in Peru, of gender projects in Colombia, of development aid for China. We pay for the pensions for other EU countries – countries in which the per capita assets are far above ours. 

Before all, however, we pay untold sums for a failed energy transition which massively overcharges the budget and our social accounts, and which will burden us for generations. 

Perhaps look for once at the studies from Holland and Denmark, or at least what Herr Raffelhüschen has written. 

            Claudia Raffelhüschen (FDP): Oah!

The results are unequivocal: The costs of migration are ruining our social state. What follows from that is clear: Still more rapidly rising contributions for pensions, health and care – and still fewer benefits for those who are to provide for all of this with their work. That is the new reality in Germany: As it happens, for those who finance the whole thing with their tax money, there remains scarcely anything. This is unique in Europe. 

            Martin Rosemann (SPD): All dumb stuff!

This is the reason why in Germany no normal earner can still afford a house, or in old age, the  care home. 

You can, Minister Heil, still so often emphasize, “Work makes the difference” – the people know better. That ultimately is also an origin of the rising costs in Bürgergeld. 

It is directly therefore an original sin that the Ampel in its greed wants to further avail itself of the employees’ money. 

            Gabriele Katzmarek (SPD): That is just nonsense, what you are telling here!

With threadbare reasoning, you already had the finger in the till of the Federal Agency for Labor. That, after the last hearing, Gott sei dank, you have no longer dared – not nearly from insight, but alone out of fear of the next constitutional slap. 

Instead, you continue to plunder the statutory pensions, those additional allowances guaranteed by statute which you cut without further ado up to 2027 by a total of around 6.8 billion euros. 

For your next great project, the equities pension [Akteinrente], in which you are so proud, here are a couple of numbers: When, for that, you borrow 12 billion euros as a one-time credit and stick it in a fund, when do you think you would you at least restore the eliminated 6.8 billion euros? In the year 2050. And when you each year borrow 12 billion on credit and continually deposit it in a fund, the 6.8 billion is in back there until the year 2032 – besides the payments of up to 108 billion. 

Unfortunately, that does not at all help the Pension Insurance; since the sustainability reserve will be exhausted by 2026 as a result of your present cutbacks. Yet what do numbers matter when the government now needs money? And that shows what employees and pensioners are worth to the government. 

This development is dangerous. 

When the people no longer have the feeling that their work pays, when they no longer have the feeling that the government keeps its promises, then you lay the axe to the foundation of our society. Therefore I say today: Learn from the disaster which you have let loose with false incentives for the Bürgergeld, do not abuse the citizens’ income and assets for your wrong way, and turn back to the ground of reality! 

Many thanks. 

 

[trans: tem]

Dirk Spaniel, December 1, 2023, Auto Industry and Combustion Engine

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/142, pp. 18008-18009. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

I also rejoice over this debate. It is always important to remind the Federal Transportation Minister of his public promises and of his presentation that he is the saviour of the combustion engine. I however believe – and here I clearly share your opinion – that this will not happen. This Transportation Minister will enter into the history of the Federal Republic of Germany as the one who not only has taken from the automobile driver the affordable auto, but also the existence foundation from the German auto industry. 

Let us begin with the auto industry. The German auto industry – it cannot be said otherwise – is at the abyss. This leads to citations from Volkswagen, a large German concern, which acknowledges itself to no longer be competitive in the supplier industry, and to a raising of eyebrows in the populace. Yet it is in fact a public confession of the failure that your policy of subvention of electro-mobility obviously does not matter to the manufacturers. The production of vehicles in Germany has receded in this year from five million to 3.5 million vehicles. That is a failure of this government. You have not managed to bring about the transformation. 

It is however not only a failure of this government, it is also a slap against the auto driver himself. We have the problem in this country that the people buy no electro-autos because they are plainly impractical as a first vehicle and are not useful. That means, electro-mobility occurs where there are two or three vehicles in the parking lot, or simply in the small car sector as a third vehicle. That is the reality; all of the experts say it to you. 

It is an affront to demand at an auto summit of the auto industry that one should now please manufacture small cars and cheap electro-vehicles. Are we here in socialism? Nein, we are not; we have overcome that, even if you again want to go back to it. It’s bad that you participate in that. It is really bad. 

What then is the result when we in Germany promote cheap electro-mobility? What will that then cause? It will bring about, exactly so as in regards the solar industry, that we will promote Chinese and other foreign concerns with German tax money. German taxpayers, German employees, support with these subventions the abolition of their own workplaces. That is your policy. We are against that; we do not participate in that. 

Now I come just briefly to your motion. Your motion basically means the same thing as we brought in here to the Bundestag five years ago. Five years ago, we pushed for that there be a credit on the fleet limit values. The Transportation Minister was then Herr Scheuer from your delegation. He however did not commit himself in Europe that it happen. That unfortunately needs be said. Today, you join in, five years too late. The principal problem with your motion is: It comes five years too late. And because you thus come too late, what you here demand will thus no longer be feasible on the timeline where it may take effect. 

We have now in Europe a situation in which industry requires planning security. We know that electro-mobility is a chimera, at least in general. That, we all know; at least the reasonable side of the plenum knows that. The fact is that we now require a solution. The solution however cannot be to now again start up the synthetic fuels as you demand it. Nein, the solution must be to set aside this senseless ban on the combustion engine on the European level, or at least postpone it for ten years. Otherwise, we have a disaster for our industry and for the people in this country. All else is an irresponsible policy. And I expect from you of the government that you finally accept this and that you go this way at the European level. 

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

Götz Frömming, December 13, 2023, Education Disaster

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/143, pp. 18150-18151. 

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

If is entered into a well-known search engine the word “education catastrophe” [Bildungskatastrophe] – it directly occurs to me when I peek at you, Herr Gehring – 

            Kai Gehring (Greens): Many thanks!

then is received within 0.21 second approximately 34,600 results. The theme thus appears to agitate the public – in that regard, the term is certainly nothing new. Already in 1964, the leftist pedagogue Georg Picht coined the term of the so-called education catastrophe. He of course did it with a knowing alarmism so as to drive the Politik before him and agitate for reforms, similar to what today the authors of the PISA study are attempting. Yet, ladies and gentlemen, Georg Picht was wrong; since in comparison to today the 60s were simply an education paradise. Then, even a Hauptschul student still mastered the rule of three. Today, very many Gymnasium students can no longer do that, ladies and gentlemen. 

When we now peek at the study, we need to state – it has already in part been said: In mathematics, Singapore is 100 points ahead of Germany, which corresponds to a lead of several learning years. And in German and natural science, our performances have dramatically broken down. The big question simply is: How to explain this? 

For one – this was also discussed this morning in committee – it was a great failure to close the schools for months during the Corona pandemic. In scarcely one other country was it so long as with us in Germany. We had warned of that and meanwhile we know that these school closings, inclusive of wearing masks, were completely useless. Pleasant greetings to Herr Lauterbach and his wretched advisors. 

Yet you evidently also wanted to use the times of the school closings to demonstrate that presence instruction might be replaced by digitalization. Now, ladies and gentlemen, if this should have been a field research, then you have thereby ruinously failed. 

Kai Gehring (Greens): Yet you said: There is no Corona! And Herr Gauland as one of the  first let himself be vaccinated! Thus, what now?

Since in many subjects, the students after the celebrated on-line instruction during the pandemic knew even less than before. That is indeed an evidence of incapacity for your pitiful attempt with the digitalization. While other countries – the song of songs to digitalization was again sung here today – like Sweden or Denmark besides straightaway again ban the tablets from the instruction – just read the newspapers – 

            Kai Gehring (Greens): Nay, read the studies for once! One does not succeed here                  with newspaper knowledge! 

one hears and is stunned – to recollect the culture of books, you plan on economic and not really pedagogical grounds a Digital Package 2.0. Dear colleague Kaczmarek, dear Herr Jarzombek, you also evidently are for it. Please exempt the children and our schools from that. They still have not yet digested the Digital Package 1.0. 

And the second principal origin of the education disaster is due to political false decisions – we have also already heard it. Between the years 2012 and 2022 – thus, within the span of the PISA – the portion of students with a migration background nearly doubled with us. It is now at 26 percent. And, ladies and gentlemen – here I need to look at the CDU – that was also unfortunately a “service”, in quotation marks, of your Chancellor. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Of whom they want to hear nothing more! 

Kai Gehring (Greens): Do you still want to say something on gender, and why the young are worse?

The opening of the borders in 2015 and in the following years was a heavy mortgage on our education system, on which we still have to chew, ladies and gentlemen. 

Josef Kraus, he was for 30 years President of the German Teachers Association, has just recently indicated in an article that at a proportion of from 20 to some 30 percent of children with a migration background, the level of a class or of an entire school dramatically sinks. In regards to which I need say from my own experience: It depends on from which countries the students come. Girls from eastern Europe, boys from Japan or Korea, are as a rule not a problem. Yet, ladies and gentlemen, we need for once to openly state it: Problematic are countries of origin like Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria and also Turkey. These students frequently fail over-proportionately in our education system. And those are the facts, Herr Gehring, at which you certainly need not laugh. 

If we are not ready to name these facts without prejudice, without similarly swinging the racism club in the direction of the AfD, and then to thereby speak of it, then we will then also not protect our education system from further decline, ladies and gentlemen. 

Kai Gehring (Greens): Ja, you are in love with decline! We are average and need to be at the top! Yet, for you, it’s about decline! The AfD is a wrecking ball for Germany!          

Added to this with greater difficulty is that most of the students from these countries of origin also bring with them an unfavorable socio-economic profile, as is stipulated in the PISA study. Now, I translate that: There are students who also in their countries belong to lower classes distant from education. And it is simply naïve to believe that they, within a brief time with us,  could present the skilled force which we so urgently need. 

            Maria Klein-Schmeink (Greens): Which all of you scare off!

You make the dumbest migration policy of the entire world! 

            Vice-president Petra Pau: Please come to a conclusion.

To other countries come the top forces; from us, they emigrate. 

Kai Gehring (Greens): You are thus for the point system. Which you yourself do not believe in!

Thus will be nothing with the education change. We require an education change 

            Vice-president Petra Pau: Herr Dr. Frömming.

and a migration change of 180 degrees, ladies and gentlemen. 

Many thanks, Frau President. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Gerrit Huy, October 17, 2023, Citizens’ Wage

AfD Kompakt, October 17, 2023. 

Ever more employees, especially in the low-wage sector, quit their work because the citizens’ wage [Bürgergeld] promises a performance-free income. We of the AfD delegation have quite early warned that the Ampel’s Bürgergeld has been framed too abundantly and thereby lies dangerously near the applicable minimum wage. An optional increase of the statutory minimum wage needs to be carefully weighed and continually take into consideration that already today many Mittelstand operations and businesses in eastern Germany are under an enormous wage pressure and simply cannot pay a higher minimum wage. And the assertion circulating in the area of the Bürgergeld debate that there exists in this country no wage disparity requirement [Lohnabstandsgebot] is false. So decided the Federal Constitutional Court in 2020 that civil servants in the lowest pay grades need to be better off than recipients of the basic security. They should have 15 percent more net so that their work pays. And for the normal employees, who are not civil service, work should also pay. Labor market policy decisions following the Federal Constitutional Court’s ruling appear to be sensible. In this sense, future wage development should anticipate Bürgergeld development. Otherwise will still more employees wander away to the Bürgergeld. 

 

[trans: tem]

Rainer Kraft, July 6, 2023, Emissions Decree

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/115, p. 14242. 

Esteemed President. Valued colleagues.

 The 31^st decree presented for the enforcement of the Federal emissions protection law is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Duty-bound, the protection of labor and environment is addressed, and you promise the new, the healed world. Yet, thought through to the end, your assessment means the zero harm strategy, that the safest workplace is no workplace, and that the most environmentally friendly production is to be a production outside of Germany. 

Chemistry, ladies and gentlemen, chemistry is life; life which you gladly wish to comprehensively control and regulate. Your planned economy shall thereby be in reality implemented by legions of self-named consultants, institutes and agents. You create entirely new job descriptions without any productive activity – to the harm of the entire nation and its citizens who everyday stand at the value-creation front.    

I know, you can only with difficulty imagine; solvents in industry are indispensable. They make possible the manufacture of chemicals, undertake cleaning chores, support the production fabrication, and assist in the optimization of the surface area; in regards corrosion protection, phosphating, chromating, anodization, etching, painting, and in regards to thousands of additional uses which you want to restrict and make more expensive. 

You assert that an intensification of the emissions protection would have no effect on the consumer prices. That – and it needs be said quite clearly – is a lie, and a bad one at that. For of course added certifications cost money. Of course additional expertise costs money. Of course additional bureaucratic positions in Brussels cost money. And of course the unnecessary re-equipment of industrial installations costs money. 

It is the taxpayers’ money which you here, with your dream of an eco-socialist Utopia, throw out the window by the handful. Many, many small and mid-sized businesses require in one form or another simple solvents. What else remains for these businesses as a result of your price hustling than to shift the costs onto their customers? 

As if that were not enough, the product quality will also suffer. The quality of paints and colors will diminish. Metals will rust sooner; woods will more quickly rot. Your reducing plan is the way back to the Dark Ages. That has something to do neither with sustainability nor with environmental protection. It will simply cost money and workplaces. 

We of the AfD say no; no to your irrational fear of everything which human ingenuity and the urge to create has brought forward; no to your agenda hostile to economy and freedom, and no to measures which serve environmental protection only on paper. The Federal emissions protection decree should serve the German people and not put together an additional stimulus program for India or China. We, the AfD, want to export goods, not workplaces. We reject the decree.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

  

 

 

Ulrike Schielke-Ziesing, May 25, 2023, Low Wages and Small Business

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/106, p. 12834.

Right honorable Frau President. Dear colleagues. Honored citizens.

We have quite often heard it today: Employees, who have the good fortune to be paid according to scale in a business with a works council at its disposal and where there is a an employee representation worthy of the name, have not only higher incomes but in general also essentially better working conditions. Wage dumping and precarious work conditions are found especially where there is simply no representation of interests which can strengthen employee rights, So far, so good.

Yes, we of the AfD wish that as many employees as possible profit from the advantages of having a voice, and to that also plainly belong binding wage contracts. Higher wages – that is long since no more a luxury but a sheer necessity. In a country where so many citizens can no more afford daily living, in which the state squeezes the citizens with so many taxes and contributions that for many it would be more profitable to stay home with a citizen’s wage [Bürgergeld],

            Annika Klose (SPD): Ach, rubbish!

it is quite especially important that work be appropriately respected; that is to say, honored.

For too long was our country a low wage country. What we now complain of as old age poverty, and will still suffer in the future, is also the result of an abusive form of a precarious low wage sector. A third of those employed full-time today will receive a pension of not even 1,200 euros, but less – for 45 years full-time, as is well known. That is a scandal.

Here, good wage scale parameters [tarifliche Rahmenbedingungen] help and therefore we of the AfD are also for the promotion of these.

Yet what surely does not work is to write your ideal into a motion and then to believe it works out in the implementation. That is wishful thinking. And what happens when a socialist dream meets reality can you certainly experience in the heating transition debacle of your green comrades.

For us in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern soon threatens the care collapse – because ambulatory care service was recently placed under the wage contracts law and soon its employees can simply no longer perform. That is the reason why the first Federal states again already say goodbye to their own wage contracts laws – must say goodbye. That means: Please, some more honesty! And so it appears that we find ourselves in a crisis, and that we have many small businesses which only with difficulty can keep themselves above water. Those employed and the businesses would thereby be better served if their work was not daily hindered.

A Left party which gets chummy in the climate chaos so to win recruits, and on its website brags

            Pascal Meiser (Linke): Remain with the motion! Or have you again not read it?

of going into the street with the youth climate movement, is part of the problem and not the solution. Here then the pious wish for a collective agreement is of no additional help.

Many thanks.

            Pascal Meiser (Linke): You’ve sniffed too much adhesive!

 

[trans: tem]