CDU on work and social affairs

The CDU wants to push at the federal level for more flexible statutory maximum working hours, as far as European law allows. Within the state, co-working offerings and new forms of work are to be supported.

The CDU wants looser rules on working hours. Workers should have to agree to this. It should help families and people who care for relatives. There should be shared offices across the state. These are called co-working spaces.

The change concerns the federal Working Hours Act. According to the platform, more flexible hours would apply only with employees' consent and ease daily life for young families and people caring for relatives. They are also meant to reflect digital work better. The state is to enable co-working spaces across the whole state and support new-work initiatives. Fast broadband and statewide Wi-Fi are to back digital forms of work. The CDU also calls for strengthening collective bargaining autonomy again.

The CDU wants to draw more skilled workers from people already living in Schleswig-Holstein. Better childcare is meant to lower the share of part-time work and help women in particular work more. The state's skilled-labor initiative FI.SH is to be developed further.

The state does not have enough skilled workers. The CDU wants to win more people who already live there. Better childcare should help. Then more women can work longer hours. People without jobs should also get better training.

The platform names attractive care for children and teenagers as a way to reduce the part-time rate. The long-term unemployed, people with disabilities, and refugees are to receive better training and better-matched offers for the regular labor market, in cooperation with employers in the state. The FI.SH initiative is to be refined together with business associations so that the move from training into a job within the state works better and incentives arise to move there or return home. The CDU also wants as many apprenticeships as possible to be completed and young people to choose trades in sectors with shortages.

The CDU wants to establish shared offices in rural areas and support them through a funding guideline. In its view, this strengthens villages, makes it easier to balance work and private life, and cuts commuting and thus emissions.

The CDU wants shared offices in the countryside. People can work there close to home. Then they have to travel less. That is good for the climate and for families.

A dedicated funding guideline for such workplaces is planned. The state administration is to lead by example. More generally, the CDU wants to support new working models locally.

The CDU wants the state to take on more responsibility for child poverty, even though many support services are the job of municipalities. Existing support for children and young people is to be strengthened, and those involved are to be connected at a statewide child poverty conference. The aim is for opportunities not to depend on a child's family background.

Many children in Schleswig-Holstein are poor. The CDU wants the state to do more about this. Help for children and young people should get stronger. There should be a big meeting on child poverty. Experts should share ideas there.

The platform points out that in some neighborhoods two thirds of children and young people live on government transfer payments and have worse prospects as a result. The CDU wants to break this cycle. As building blocks it names the Perspektivschulprogramm (a program for schools in disadvantaged areas), the initiative "Kein Kind ohne Mahlzeit" (no child without a meal), and open youth work, youth associations, cultural youth work, outreach youth social work, and youth protection work. It also wants more training places at vocational schools for social pedagogy and support for a social work degree program at Fachhochschule Westküste with two lecturer positions.

The CDU wants to draw up a state plan against loneliness in old age and support local help. Older people should be able to gain digital skills, while non-digital services remain in place. Upper age limits for civic engagement are to be reviewed.

Many older people are lonely. The CDU wants to make a plan against this. Older people should be able to learn how to use digital devices. Those who cannot should still get services without the internet. The CDU wants to review age limits for volunteering.

The platform justifies the loneliness plan by saying that unwanted loneliness makes people ill and that the number of people living alone is growing. Educational institutions and advice centers that promote older people's digital skills are to be supported. For people who cannot use digital services, assistance and non-digital channels are to remain. Working in old age is to become more attractive through suitable training, job profiles, and roles. At the federal level, the CDU wants to push for making the social security systems, and above all retirement provision, fit for the future.

The CDU wants to continue the state's accessibility fund and remove barriers in public facilities, public transit, health care and housing. It sees inclusion as a task that cuts across all policy areas and justifies removing barriers with participation in society.

People with disabilities often face obstacles. The CDU wants to remove these obstacles. The state has a fund for this. The CDU wants to keep it going. There should be more homes, doctors' offices and buses without obstacles.

In the new funding period, the fund is to focus on inclusive neighborhoods and communities. Funding options are to be created for accessible and affordable housing, including special-purpose buildings for groups with particular needs. Hospitals, doctors' offices, therapy facilities and pharmacies are to become more accessible, as are public facilities and transit companies. The CDU also wants to strengthen early intervention through flexible use of specialists in daycare centers, expand social pediatric centers and give more support to inclusive sports.

The CDU wants to open the way into regular companies for more people with disabilities and build an inclusive vocational training system. Sheltered workshops for people with disabilities are to change over the long term.

People with disabilities should find regular jobs more easily. The CDU wants to work more with companies for this. Job training should also be open to everyone. Workshops for people with disabilities should change over time. First the CDU wants to test new ways of working.

Cooperation with companies is to grow, and an advertising campaign is to raise awareness of the Budget für Arbeit und Ausbildung (a wage subsidy for work and training). The party wants to examine setting up a commission of inquiry on vocational training and work for people with disabilities to identify paths into higher education and the regular labor market. For the workshops, the first step is a pilot of new work models with academic monitoring, involving all stakeholders. The inclusive vocational training system is to be built with the help of the Schleswig-Holstein Institute for Vocational Education.

The CDU wants to continue the state hardship fund set up during the coronavirus period on a permanent basis, mainly to support food banks. Funding to fight poverty is to keep rising, and homeless people are to get easier help finding housing.

The CDU wants to help poor people. During the pandemic there was a fund for people in need. It should stay for good. The money should mainly help food banks. Food banks give food to poor people. People without a home should find housing more easily.

Food banks (Tafeln) and local volunteer work are meant to benefit most from the fund. The party wants to raise state funding for prevention and support further where needed. Housing placement for homeless people is to become simpler and be expanded. The state's poverty reporting is also to be reviewed and improved if necessary.