Mr. Silberbach, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called on the trade unions to exercise moderation in the forthcoming collective bargaining rounds due to record inflation.

Will the DBB follow suit?

Stephen Klenner

Editor FAZ objection.

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The Federal Chancellor invited to his “Concentrated Action” in the Chancellery, and I took part.

Collective bargaining is not conducted there.

We will decide on our collective bargaining demands for the federal and local governments in October.

They will be high.

There is no other way in the current situation.

So concentrated action failed?

no

For example, if the federal government wants to use the "concentrated action" to think about spending less in the face of inflation, we're happy to help.

For example, we should talk about how we can better target social spending.

There is a lack of controls as to whether all social benefit recipients are actually entitled.

There is abuse there.

The state is wasting money unnecessarily.

In order to carry out these checks, however, we need more staff in the authorities.

You regularly request more staff.

Every year you ask your member unions about the lack of staff in the public sector.

Are there already figures for 2022?

Yes, according to our forty member unions, there is a shortage of 360,000 workers.

In doing so, we not only consider vacancies, but also the personnel requirements resulting from new tasks.

Can the member unions judge that at all?

Our member unions are in the staff representatives and they have job plans and job descriptions.

The figures are based on the reality on site and are not a wish list.

The 360,000 is only a snapshot: In the next few years, the number will be much larger due to the retirement of the baby boomers.

Which measures effectively eliminate the staff shortage?

Two things are very important: On the one hand, we finally need long-term personnel planning in the administration that takes demographic change into account.

We need to create jobs now to prepare future generations for the tasks ahead.

On the other hand, we have to make public service more attractive through incentive systems.

Financially we cannot compete with the private sector.

But the public service can be a particularly modern and family-friendly employer.

He already is.

There is flextime and home office in almost all areas.

Many employees push a mountain of overtime in front of them.

We have to go there.

Ultimately, your suggestions will result in more jobs and more expenses.

Does the bureaucracy have to keep getting fatter?

Measured in terms of economic output, our European neighbors spend significantly more money on public services and employ many more people per capita in the state than we do.

However, I am of course aware that digitization could eliminate tasks in a number of areas, especially routine matters.

But we still need the positions for other tasks, for example in consulting.

Someone who has done routine tasks in the past is not necessarily qualified to do other jobs in the future.

In the public service there is little pressure to continue your education.

That's true, but that's not up to us unions.

We have been calling for a qualification offensive for the administration for a long time and are open to performance-related pay.

Those who continue their education should get more.

Performance-related pay in the public sector often fails because superiors shy away from responsibility and do not award performance bonuses even though they could.

The watering can principle prevails.