FDP on work and social affairs

The FDP wants job centers and employment agencies to be required to check whether their reintegration programs work. Only providers that can show an adequate success rate should receive public money. Instead of ready-made courses, support should focus more on the individual unemployed person and on actual jobs.

The FDP wants to check help for unemployed people more closely. Job centers should measure whether a program works. Only successful providers should get public money. Each unemployed person should get help that fits them. The job center should stay in contact the whole time.

The program cites the Federal Court of Auditors, which finds that reintegration measures have so far succeeded only by chance. The FDP wants to evaluate the training providers in Bremen and Bremerhaven, merge duplicate offers and align courses more closely with market needs, with quality checks on providers, teaching and content. The need for programs should be determined in transparent procedures and reflect unemployment in the individual districts, so that purchased places do not have to be filled by force. During a program, the job center should support participants continuously, for example through external coaching or its own counseling sessions. According to the program, the goal is to use public funds effectively and give many people a way out of long-term unemployment.

The FDP wants to lift the limit on daily working hours and regulate only weekly or monthly working time instead. In its view, the fixed eleven-hour rest period stands in the way of flexible work and of combining family and job. The state should step in only when employers and employees cannot agree.

The FDP wants more flexible working hours. There should be no fixed limit per day anymore. Instead, hours per week or month count. Bosses and workers should agree on this themselves. The state should only help if they cannot agree.

The program calls the current Working Hours Act outdated and criticizes the rigid eleven-hour rest period. Employees and employers should be able to balance personal and business interests themselves so that no one drifts into legal gray areas. Legal uncertainty for employers about documentation duties, time recording and trust-based working time should end. Family-friendly hours are meant to help parents; the state, its two cities and their companies should lead by example.

The FDP wants to scrap several restrictions on temporary agency work that it considers outdated. It sees agency work as a way for companies to respond flexibly and as an entry point for the unemployed, the low-skilled, older people and refugees. At the same time, agency workers should become eligible for Kurzarbeitergeld (short-time work allowance).

The FDP wants fewer rules for temp work. In temp work, an agency lends its workers to other companies. People from outside the EU should also be allowed to do this work. Temp work should also be allowed in construction. The 18-month limit should go.

According to the program, the ban on employing non-EU nationals, the ban on placing workers in construction and the 18-month cap on an assignment should all go. The FDP justifies the last point by noting that agency workers are entitled to the same pay as permanent staff after nine months anyway. The program cites the Federal Employment Agency, saying that from July 2020 to June 2021, 34.5 percent of refugees who took up employment started in agency work. The Covid pandemic and the war against Ukraine, it argues, have shown that companies need to stay flexible.

The FDP wants to scrap Bremen's state minimum wage. It argues that the wage is unnecessary alongside the federal minimum wage and creates red tape that puts Bremen companies at a disadvantage compared with neighboring Lower Saxony. The party backs collective bargaining autonomy and rejects politically set wages.

Bremen has its own minimum wage. The FDP wants to abolish it. It says there is already a minimum wage for all of Germany. The Bremen wage causes a lot of paperwork for companies. Employers and unions should set wages, not politicians.

The program criticizes that the state minimum wage is tied to the entry-level pay in the public sector, whose wage talks, in the FDP's view, do not reflect conditions in the rest of the economy. It regards the administrative burden as a locational and competitive disadvantage for businesses in Bremen and Bremerhaven. The party says the Minimum Wage Commission, which balances the interests of workers and employers independently of politics, has generally proven its worth.

The FDP wants to end compulsory membership and mandatory dues for workers in Bremen's Arbeitnehmerkammer (Chamber of Employees). Instead, membership should be voluntary and paid, as is common with unions and political parties. The party argues that workers otherwise have to help fund political goals they do not share.

In Bremen, all workers must be members of the Chamber of Employees. They pay dues for it. The FDP wants to end this duty. Everyone should decide for themselves whether to join and pay.

The program notes that apart from Bremen, only Saarland has such compulsory membership for employees. According to the FDP, the chamber has a social-democratic leaning; its boards are staffed throughout with active union members, and it pursues its own political agenda. The dues are a financial burden on workers, the party says. In the future, membership should rest on a free choice.

The FDP wants to strengthen older people's social participation, for example through meeting places, home visits and support for their volunteer work. Senior facilities are to have Wi-Fi throughout and offer digital training.

The FDP wants old people to take part in city life. There should be places to meet and things to do. Homes for seniors should have Wi-Fi everywhere. Old people should also learn there how to use digital devices. The FDP also wants to support volunteer work by seniors.

The platform calls for suitable places to meet and spend time, attractive open spaces and leisure activities in Bremen and Bremerhaven. For older people with physical or mental impairments, services are to counter loneliness; the pilot project of preventive home visits is backed. Wi-Fi is to be available in all facilities for seniors, and digital training is to be held in senior and nursing homes, paid for through the home fees. Other educational offerings for older people are to be expanded. The FDP also wants to encourage volunteering by seniors so they can pass their experience on to younger generations.

The FDP wants to create more suitable training places and jobs for people with disabilities. Sheltered workshops are to place their workers in regular jobs more often, and companies are to receive better advice and support.

People with disabilities should find a regular job more easily. The FDP wants to give companies better advice and support for this. Workshops for people with disabilities should move more people into regular jobs. Advice for the people themselves should also get better.

The platform calls creating such jobs a task for society as a whole. Targeted support outside of school is to prepare people for working life. Job placement is to be hands-on and come with ongoing guidance. The Budget für Arbeit, a wage subsidy for employers who hire people with disabilities in regular jobs, is to be strengthened. The FDP sees workshop employees as potential for the labor market that has so far received too little attention.