As of: February 3, 2024, 6:21 a.m
By: Lisa Mayerhofer
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Labor Minister Heil wants to present Pension Package II in February and a collective bargaining law in the spring.
Both projects agreed in the coalition agreement have been discussed by the traffic light for months.
Berlin – The long wait will soon be over: Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) now wants to launch the long-announced pension package and a collective bargaining law.
The federal government will “present a pension package II in February with which we will permanently secure the pension level in Germany,” the SPD politician announced on Thursday in the Bundestag’s budget debate.
The government will present a law in the spring to strengthen collective agreements: “We want federal public contracts to only go to companies that pay according to collective agreements.”
Heil: Federal contracts only to companies with collective agreements
Both projects agreed in the coalition agreement have been discussed in the traffic light government for months.
A first draft by Heil for a federal tariff compliance law from May last year stipulated that federal orders worth more than 10,000 euros would only go to companies that pay according to the tariff.
Labor Minister Heil (SPD) wants to present pension package II in February and a collective bargaining law in the spring.
(Archive image) © Kilian Genius/dpa
At the time, Heil had announced a draft law for June.
Heil expects that employees will be paid better.
“Where full-time employees have a collective agreement, they earn on average 18 percent more than colleagues in the same industry without a collective agreement,” said Heil.
Second pension package is intended to secure pension levels
The second pension package is intended to fix the pension level and introduce the so-called stock pension.
The pension level should not fall to less than 48 percent of average wages in the long term.
At the instigation of the FDP in particular, a capital stock is to be created with the help of new debt, with which a return is to be generated on the capital markets, which is intended to relieve pension insurance contributions from the mid-1930s.
The draft federal budget for 2024 provides for twelve billion euros in new debt.
If no action is taken, “the pension level will drop,” said Heil when discussing his budget in the deliberations on the 2024 budget. The traffic light government will prevent this.
The minister said he was “in favor of flexible transitions into retirement”.
“But with this federal government there will be no increase in the statutory retirement age, which the Union would like.
That would be the wrong approach.”
(lma/Reuters/AFP)