Back to old strength: DGB founds its own association in the district
Created: 04/30/2022, 20:00
By: Peter Borchers
Good things are (from left) Klaus Barthel, Sepp Parzinger and Raimund Novak that the new DGB district association in Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen will be a successful model.
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For around 20 years, trade unionists in the district more or less clung to the skirts of the neighboring district of Miesbach.
At the beginning of April, a separate DGB district association was founded again.
Geretsried
– The German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) is again independently present in the district after a break of around 20 years.
On April 4th, the delegates of six of the eight member trade unions founded a district association in the premises of the “Nail and Thread” association in Geretsried.
At its head are the Tölz emergency surgeon Raimund Novak and his deputy Klaus Barthel.
The SPD veteran from Kochel has been a DGB member for 45 years and before he was 23 years old he worked full-time as a professional politician and member of the German Bundestag in the Public Services, Transport and Traffic Union (ÖTV).
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In the last two decades - after the local cartels in Bad Tölz, Wolfratshausen and Geretsried "went to sleep" after the death or resignation of old union veterans, as Barthel puts it - there was a cross-district association with Miesbach.
"Most of the activities took place there," admits Sepp Parzinger, organizational secretary of the DGB office in Rosenheim.
Barthel adds: "In the end, not much happened here in the district when we were attached to Miesbach."
Nationwide, the DGB currently represents around 6 million employees, almost 800,000 of them in Bavaria, divided into 70 city and district associations.
"There are about 2,500 members organized in the district of Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen," says Parzinger.
But the members have been running away from the unions for years: In the best of times, around 1990, almost 12 million employees were united under the umbrella of the DGB.
Barthel explains the decline in members using examples.
“We used to have large companies like Moralt in Bad Tölz, Dorst in Kochel or the large industrial companies in Geretsried and Wolfratshausen with several hundred workers, most of whom were organized.
That offered a certain basic structure.” The Deutsche Bundespost was also an “anchor point for the trade unions”, according to the 66-year-old.
This picture has changed through rationalizations,
With the founding of the district association, you want to set a counterpoint, says Chairman Novak.
The 40-year-old comes from Ried near Kochel, did not live in the district for a while and, after moving back here, found "no connection to the union", of which he has been a member for 20 years.
In Novak, the idea of setting something up here grew.
After an exchange of ideas with Parzinger and Barthel, he ran into open doors: “The encouragement at the founding meeting was good.
Six of the eight unions were there.” The Miesbach colleagues did not see the step as an affront either – on the contrary: “They think it’s great,” says Novak happily.
"All in all we are in good spirits."
The new district association wants to be "open to all members who want to contribute their ideas and experiences," says the chairman.
However, the 40-year-old also wants to appeal to the younger generation.
"The local trade union should once again have an image that young people say: 'Hey, if I want to do something against injustice or inequality, then my first step is to join the trade union.'
Because that's how I got into it 20 years ago." According to Novak, the focus of the work will be "a mix of company politics, classic politics such as minimum wage, supply chain law, financing of the health care system".
The district boss also makes it clear that social policy is also a DGB topic.
That is due to the history.
“The unions have been fighting right-wing extremism since the 1920s.
Read the latest news from Geretsried here.