The eight individual trade unions together have almost six million members.
(Photo: imago images/Andre Germar)
Berlin The SPD politician Yasmin Fahimi is to become the new chairwoman of the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) and is to be elected to succeed Reiner Hoffmann at the federal congress in May. The executive DGB national board has submitted a corresponding personnel proposal, as was confirmed to the Handelsblatt by board members. It was first reported by The Pioneer.
Fahimi was union secretary at the mining, chemical and energy industrial union (IG BCE) for many years and is the partner of its chairman Michael Vassiliadis. As the longest-serving of the eight DGB individual union bosses, he was entrusted with finding a successor for Hoffmann, who will not run again for reasons of age.
The search for a successor had dragged on for a long time because IG Metall, which had the right to propose, could not come up with a suitable candidate. Fahimi becomes the first woman to head the DGB, which sees itself as the political voice of workers.