Grüne on work and social affairs

The Greens want to digitize the social, youth and housing offices so that support reaches people faster and more easily. Benefits are to be handled in one place and approved through a single application. The platform also calls for a commission on old-age poverty and more debt counseling.

The Greens want to make welfare offices digital. People should get help with just one application. They should hand in their papers only once. There should also be more advice for people with debts.

As a first step, the platform names automatic payment of child benefit and parental allowance from birth, modeled on a Hamburg program. All administrations are to get electronic files, secure data exchange between agencies and AI systems to reduce staff workload. Need should be checked only once where the criteria are similar, and multi-year approvals are to be examined. In-person advice is to remain, supplemented by mobile citizens' offices and multilingual, low-barrier services. To fight poverty, the party plans a state commission on old-age poverty, debt counseling anchored across the city, and more mediation and advice for energy debts.

The Greens want to tackle street homelessness with an action plan and expand the “Housing First” program. Cold-weather shelter is to be secured year-round and around the clock. In the platform's view, homelessness reflects social hardship rather than personal failure.

The Greens want to help homeless people more. They should be able to get their own home without conditions. This is called “Housing First.” Emergency shelters should be open all year. Medical help should also get better.

Together with the state-owned housing companies, more apartments are to be provided for Housing First; separate service categories in social assistance law are to be created for it and for families. Access to shelters is to become easier, especially for EU citizens without a claim to benefits, whose social rights the party wants to advocate for at the federal level. Multilingual counseling and special services for groups such as women, queer people, minors and people with disabilities are to grow. Also planned are more daytime and heat-relief services, health centers and recovery apartments, and treatment even without insurance. As a bridge, “safe places,” for example in tiny houses, are to be allowed.

The Greens want to create open, noncommercial places for meeting, advice and support in neighborhoods. An Altenhilfestrukturgesetz (elder services structure act) is to bring together services for older people and secure their funding. The platform sees a strong social environment as the best prevention against poverty and loneliness.

The Greens want more meeting places in neighborhoods. People can get advice and help there. A new law should secure services for older people. There should also be a plan against loneliness.

Elder services, mobile neighborhood work, neighborhood management and housing emergency aid are to be planned and coordinated together. Mobile community work is meant to reach people who do not come to a neighborhood center. A state strategy against loneliness is planned, as is a participatory reform of the law on seniors' involvement. The districts are to receive flexible budgets for especially burdened neighborhoods. There, social and debt counseling, job market support, education services and community work are to be strengthened and linked.

The Greens want to draw up a skilled-worker strategy for Berlin that brings more women and more people with a migration or refugee background into work. Foreign vocational qualifications are to be recognized more easily, and the Willkommenszentrum (welcome center) is to offer more advice.

Berlin does not have enough skilled workers. The Greens want to make a plan for this. More women and more immigrants should find good jobs. Qualifications from abroad should count more easily. There should be one central place for advice.

The strategy is to include gender equality and the balance of family, care and work, which the platform says also reduces poverty in old age. Long-term unemployed people are to receive coaching, further training and job opportunities. Berlin's Willkommenszentrum is to expand its advice and cooperate with migrant organizations, creating a single point of contact. Recognition procedures are to become simpler and more transparent, including for non-academic occupations, and the state is to cover the costs more often. The roundtable on climate jobs is to be strengthened. Flexible working-time models are meant to keep people from leaving the workforce early.

The Greens want to raise Berlin's state minimum wage to at least 16.50 euros and introduce a pay cap at state-owned companies of ten times that minimum wage. As an employer and contracting authority, the state is to ensure adherence to collective agreements and a fairer distribution of wages.

The minimum wage of the state of Berlin should rise to at least 16.50 euros. In companies owned by the state there should be a top wage. No one there should earn more than ten times the minimum wage. Outsourced companies should return to the parent company. Collective wage agreements should apply there.

Adherence to collective agreements and good working conditions are to take priority in the public service, in state-owned companies and in their contracts. Spun-off subsidiaries of state-owned enterprises are to return step by step to the parent companies. The platform wants to encourage the founding of works councils in all state-owned companies. The state is to refinance collectively agreed pay raises at organizations that receive public grants. The pay cap includes all bonuses. The administration and state-owned companies are also to lead the way on flexible working-time models.

The Greens want to create a chamber of labor in Berlin that gives all employees a statutory body to represent their interests. It is to act alongside the unions toward companies and policymakers and advise workers, especially those in the low-wage sector.

The Greens want to found a chamber for employees. A chamber is a body of representation set down in law. It speaks for all employees in Berlin. It also gives advice to employees. This should help people with low wages most of all.

The model is the chamber in Bremen, and it is to be set up in close coordination with the unions. The chamber is to provide a broad range of advice for all employees. It is also meant to reach people in precarious jobs whose rights have so far hardly been represented. The platform points out that an above-average number of people in Berlin work on fixed-term contracts or as solo self-employed under insecure conditions, and that outsourcing displaces jobs covered by collective agreements.

The Greens want permanent tasks at universities, music schools, Volkshochschulen (adult education centers) and memorial sites to be done by regular employees rather than freelancers. According to the platform, this draws the consequences from the Herrenberg ruling on bogus self-employment.

Many teachers work for the state of Berlin without a permanent job. The Greens want to change that. Anyone who works there long-term should get a permanent job. This applies to music schools, adult education centers, universities and memorial sites. There should be model contracts for other self-employed people.

At the music schools, the expansion of staff positions begun in 2025 is to continue. A three-pillar concept is planned for the Volkshochschulen: permanent jobs mainly for German as a foreign or second language and basic education, keeping social protection for regular freelancers, and a state contribution to social insurance for the remaining freelancers. Following the example of the adult education center in Essen, teachers are to be offered their current positions without a public job posting. Elected lecturer representatives and the union are to be involved. Model contracts are to be drawn up sector by sector for solo self-employed workers.

The Greens want to improve working conditions for platform workers such as delivery couriers, which the platform describes as catastrophic in part. Plans include multilingual advice on labor law, support for self-organization and a push at the federal level for a direct-hire requirement in the sector.

Many people work for delivery services and other platforms. Their work is often poorly protected. The Greens want to offer advice in several languages. Companies should have to hire these people directly. The Greens want to push for this at the federal level. Workers should find shelter when it is hot.

The advice and information service on labor law is to be multilingual. Together with the unions, the platform wants to support workers in organizing themselves within companies. Unlawful practices are to be prosecuted, and the responsible staff at the state office for occupational safety are to receive further training. People who work outdoors are to be able to use public spaces to rest and to find protection from heat.

The Greens want to prepare workers for the changes brought by artificial intelligence through initial and continuing training. Recognition of courses for Bildungszeit (paid educational leave) is to be simplified as well. According to the platform, no one should be left behind by technological change.

Artificial intelligence is changing many jobs. The Greens want to offer more training for workers. Companies and unions should take part. Courses for educational leave should be approved more easily. Educational leave is time off work for learning.

The training is to be developed together with companies and the social partners and tailored to people's occupations. For educational leave, the provider as a whole would be reviewed and approved instead of each individual course. If an event has already been approved in another German state, Berlin could adopt that approval. People affected by the transition are to receive prospects, guidance and concrete support, according to the platform.

The Greens want more inspections at workplaces and closer cooperation among authorities against labor exploitation and human trafficking. Victims are to be protected and not treated as illegal workers. Support should be available even if someone does not want to testify in criminal proceedings.

Some people are exploited at work. The Greens want more inspections to stop this. Authorities should work together better. Victims should get protection and help. They should not have to fear deportation.

State authorities, districts, customs, the Finanzkontrolle Schwarzarbeit (the customs unit against undeclared work) and specialized counseling centers are to cooperate more closely. Mandatory training on trauma, victim protection and human trafficking is planned for authorities and inspectors. Victims are to receive shelter housing, free legal advice, easily accessible information and secure residence status. Enough staff should monitor compliance with the core labor standards of the International Labour Organization, and the employees' chamber is to play an important role. The party does not question EU citizens' access to social benefits or their freedom of movement.

The Greens want to implement the principles of the European Pillar of Social Rights in Berlin on a binding basis. These include equal opportunity, fewer barriers, access to social benefits and social housing, and shelter for homeless people.

The EU has written down principles for social rights. The Greens want Berlin to follow them firmly. Everyone should have equal chances. Homeless people should get a place to stay.

The platform cites European pilot projects such as "Housing First" in Finland as a model, under which homeless people first receive an apartment. For EU citizens in Berlin, coordination of social benefits between member states is to improve. Counseling services in the city are to inform them about their rights and entitlements.

The Greens want people with disabilities to receive advice and support bundled in one place. The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities serves as the guide, and advisory councils and the disability parliament are to carry more weight.

People with disabilities should get help faster and in one place. The districts should make firm plans for inclusion. Inclusion means everyone can take part everywhere. The disability ID card should be easier and faster to get. People with disabilities should have more say in politics.

The districts are to get help filling their inclusion coordination offices and drawing up binding action plans on a regular basis. The Senate and districts are to agree on targets for the participation services, train staff better, and develop the services into a single point of contact ("one-stop agency"); for this, the Federal Participation Act is to be implemented. The severe disability ID is to be issued more simply and quickly, and a Berlin autism strategy is to give more attention to invisible disabilities. Disability advisory councils at state and district level are to gain the right to submit motions to the administration and to comment on plans. The disability parliament is to be made permanent and adequately funded, and the state's mental health law is to be rewritten in line with the UN convention.

The Greens want people with disabilities to be paid appropriately and to enter regular work and training more often. In the party's view, separate systems such as sheltered workshops often stand in the way of inclusion.

People with disabilities should get fair pay. This applies to regular companies and to sheltered workshops. There should be more companies where everyone works together. A state program should make training possible for everyone.

Inclusive companies are to be expanded in a targeted way. Businesses are to be better informed about the budgets for training and work and get help using them. The state program "Ausbildung inklusiv" is to be implemented; it includes a foundation for inclusive training, a stronger youth employment agency, and an inclusive redesign of the upper-level vocational school centers. In addition, the collective agreement for assistants employed directly by people with disabilities is to be recognized and refinanced.

The Greens want to keep people from living in isolation in old age because of poverty or a lack of support. To that end, social benefits would become easier to access and meeting places would be created in every district. According to the platform, one third of Berlin's seniors are affected by old-age poverty.

Many older people in Berlin are poor or lonely. The Greens want to change that. There should be more social counseling in every part of the city. Older people should get state support more easily. Every district should have meeting places for young and old.

Social counseling would grow in every neighborhood, information would be available in several languages, and people would be actively told about financial support. Free and low-cost offerings would be expanded and easy to find both online and on paper. Multigenerational meeting places are planned for every district, and existing ones would be developed further. Cultural venues would be made accessible, and companion services would help seniors attend cultural events. A pilot project for queer seniors modeled on Hamburg would be launched, and queer multigenerational housing projects would continue to receive support.