Berlin The investor would then like to give the minister one thing: the tax-free 1,500 euro premium, which could be paid to cushion the burden of the corona virus – that would also be a nice thing for the planned new inflation relief package. And by the way, the one-time payment would take the pressure off of wage negotiations.
But Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) is not yet allowed to reveal what the relief package will contain – not here either, when visiting the Benneckenstein chair factory in the Harz Mountains, which the South Tyrolean-born Felix Alber took over together with the young Berlin craftsman Simon Meinberg. He probably doesn’t even know himself yet.
Heil has brought in his proposals: a recalculation of the Hartz IV standard rates, for example, and social climate money. But the traffic light coalition is still struggling to find out how citizens should be relieved of the high energy and consumer prices. Certainly also at the cabinet meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday in Schloss Meseberg.
What’s in the package at the end doesn’t decide Heil. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) and Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) determine that.
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And so the summer trip, which takes the Minister of Labor through Saxony-Anhalt during the parliamentary summer break, is primarily about the classic topics that concern the Heils department beyond the Ukraine war and rampant inflation: shortage of skilled workers, structural change, participation of senior citizens in social life , help for young people from households in which the adults live in the third generation of Hartz IV.
>> Read here: Heil wants to extend easier access to short-time work
Here Heil can cultivate his image as the caretaker of the coalition. No matter where he is, he always has a suitable story ready to tell. Tablet classes for seniors so they can keep in touch with their children far away? His mother, who has unfortunately passed away, could have used it. The turning point in which the Treuhand processed Eastern companies? He knows him from his student days in Brandenburg and the SPD election campaign in the east, says the minister. “It was a bitter time.”
Closeness to the people in perfection
The closeness to the people that Hamburg’s Scholz lacks is perfectly embodied by Lower Saxony’s Heil. “We must not allow ourselves to live in a divided society in which some can do everything and others are excluded,” he says to the senior citizens who are familiar with the tablet at the Volkssolidarität in the town of Stassfurt make. And to a retiree who has not yet had any contact with the digital world: “First of all, you are making an Internet seahorse.”
Heil has been a member of the SPD since 1988 and has been a directly elected representative for the Gifhorn-Peine constituency in the Bundestag since 1998. The ministerial post, which he held in the last Merkel cabinet, is the culmination of his political career, during which he was twice general secretary of his party.
The 49-year-old father of two is a political alpha animal – even if his political instincts sometimes fail him. For example, the statement aimed at the grand coalition that the SPD was sweating in the engine room while the Union was relaxing on the sun deck was long felt by his party.
Heil not only manages the largest single budget in the federal budget, but is also responsible for all the issues that formed the core of the SPD election campaign: the twelve euro minimum wage will come in October, the first pension package has been passed, the second is in the works, the citizen’s allowance the way.
The Minister of Labor is also responsible for all the issues that formed the core of the SPD election campaign.
(Photo: IMAGO/BildFunkMV)
The legal machine of the Ministry of Labor is running – not always to everyone’s delight. When Heil presented the draft bill on citizen income, with which the SPD wants to put their Hartz IV trauma behind them, the employers’ association BDA complained about the state’s “declaration of bankruptcy”. And the Federal Employment Agency (BA), which ultimately has to implement the citizen benefit reform, criticized the tight lead time.
Heil is not deterred by this – on the contrary. He also likes to try to include something in the law that is not in the coalition agreement at all – such as the obligation to digitally record working hours in the mini-job law, which was then stopped by the FDP.
>> Read here: Heil plans improvements for three million disabled pensioners
In contrast to his time as General Secretary, the Minister of Labor today does not hear any critical words about the political personnel of the coalition partners, and the football fan, who was a right-hand defender from E to B youth at the Adler Hämelerwald sports club, does not even appear in intimate circles after.
SPD loses encouragement: Heil is self-confident
The only problem is that even if the Ministry of Labor works like clockwork and tackles one social democratic concern after the next – it doesn’t pay off for the SPD. In the polls, the party is 18 to 19 percent, well below its result in the federal election.
If you ask Heil about it, he comes across as self-confident. He looks at the result on election night and not at the polls, which only reflect mood swings. And the danger that the Greens will be the strongest force in the next election – ahead of the SPD? The hype surrounding the Greens has already been experienced before. What became of it is well known.
In any case, until the next election, Heil is determined to continue being the caretaker. When the minister visits the company Ambulanz Mobile in Schönebeck on his summer tour, where more than 300 employees build ambulances and special vehicles, company boss Hans-Jürgen Schwarz complains about the constant price increases of the suppliers. Price escalation clauses like those in construction industry contracts should also apply to other sectors, says Schwarz.
This is really not Salvation’s construction site. But he should send him a letter, says the Labor Minister to the company founder. He will then discuss this with his colleague Robert Habeck.
More: “Task of the hour” – Habeck announces further relief for citizens