The new chairwoman of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), Yasmin Fahimi, sees the trade unions as having a responsibility to gain more support from employees.

And she makes far-reaching demands on politicians: In a keynote speech in front of 400 delegates at the DGB federal congress in Berlin, Fahimi called on the federal government not only to reintroduce the wealth tax - she also demanded a wealth levy to finance the additional expenditure necessary for the Bundeswehr.

On top of that, she called for the abolition of the debt brake in the Basic Law.

Dietrich Creutzburg

Business correspondent in Berlin.

  • Follow I follow

It annoys her when, in view of the current crisis, it is said that "everyone is getting poorer," she called out to the delegates.

"Performance-free proceeds from assets, real estate and speculation must be used more." The wealth tax is "overdue".

And for the additional challenges resulting from the war in Ukraine, "an additional special asset levy, in case of doubt in the form of a multi-year burden equalization, would be appropriate," she said.

With an annual tax rate of one percent on assets of more than one million euros and two percent above one billion euros, the countries could earn 28 billion euros more annually, Fahimi calculated.

"And the wealthy would hardly feel a new tax."

She said on the policy of balanced budgets and the limitation of new government debt enshrined in the Basic Law.

"Away with it."

93 percent agreement

Previously, the delegates had elected the SPD politician and former chemical unionist with an approval of 93.2 percent as the successor to the incumbent Reiner Hoffmann, who was retiring due to age, at the top of the DGB.

Fahimi is now the first woman to head the joint umbrella organization of the unions.

Its central task is to represent the political interests of the eight individual unions – from Verdi to the industrial unions IG Metall and IG Bergbau, Chemie, Energie (IG BCE) – vis-à-vis the federal government.

The delegates, who are sent by the unions according to their membership, behaved more coherently in the election than had been expected after a bumpy search for candidates.

Originally, IG Metall had the right to propose, but could not agree on a suitable person.

The 2023 upcoming board election at the metallers also cast a shadow, which is about the successor to IG Metall chairman Jörg Hofmann.

After the DGB chairman Reiner Hoffmann, who had been in office since 2014, had come from the IG BCE, this time there was actually all the less reason for filling the position from their ranks again.

Fahimi once headed the policy department of the IG-BCE board of directors, and she became known to a broader public in 2014 when she was appointed SPD general secretary.

In view of the different interests between the industrial unions and the unions in the public sector, resistance in the ranks of the Verdi delegates in particular was therefore expected.

Tackle the "transformation".

Fahimi, who moved into the Bundestag for the second time as a direct candidate from her hometown of Hanover in 2021 and was assigned to the left wings in the SPD parliamentary group, quickly made it clear at the DGB congress that she also sees herself as the advocate of Verdi's interests .

She referred to private equity companies, which were increasingly pushing into the healthcare sector in order to achieve "maximum returns instead of maximum good care": "That needs to be turned back!"

However, she also pointed out that an important task for the trade union federation in the coming years was to tackle the forthcoming “transformation” of the economy and society as a common challenge for all trade unions.

"Transformation" serves as a generic term for changes caused by the conversion of industry towards climate neutrality, by digitization and the demographically caused aging of society.

Behind this is also the effort to better reconcile latent differences between the industrial unions and Verdi.

The IG-BCE chairman Michael Vassiliadis, who is also Fahimi's partner, recently addressed this conflict of interests in an interview with this newspaper (FAZ from May 7th): He emphasized the importance of a strong industry as the basis for a stable welfare state and emphasized that that state redistribution alone cannot secure prosperity.

Conversely, Fahimi emphasized that the conversion towards climate neutrality can only succeed with a well-equipped public administration.

She openly admitted that the trade unions had to make even more efforts to improve their anchoring with the employees in the companies.

The total number of members of all eight DGB trade unions has fallen by around two million to 5.7 million since the turn of the millennium.

She described the mission statement of the trade unions as “lived solidarity” that everyone must be able to experience.

"We are not a state institution that is simply there." At the same time, trade unions are something other than an insurance company "that only provides benefits when needed".