Grüne on work and social affairs

The Greens want to tie state subsidies to collectively agreed or equivalent working conditions and to a benefit for the climate. Workers from fossil fuel industries are to find new, comparable jobs and get support for retraining.

Climate protection creates many new jobs. This work should be paid fairly. Companies should get state money only if working conditions are good. Some people lose their jobs in coal. They should get help to learn new jobs.

The platform expects hundreds of thousands of new jobs from investments in energy, construction, the circular economy and industry. Where the state has influence, such as with subsidies, it is to demand conditions at the level of collective agreements. A climate check is to tie subsidies to a climate benefit. Workers in fossil fuel industries are to get skilled jobs with similar conditions. Instruments such as Qualifizierungs-Kurzarbeitergeld (a short-time work allowance for retraining) are to enable training for new fields.

The Greens want stricter enforcement of existing protections for truck drivers and want to hold large logistics companies responsible for their subcontractors. According to the program, the sector's growth has come at the expense of its workers.

Drivers and couriers often work under poor conditions. The Greens want better checks on rest-time rules. Big companies should also answer for their subcontractors. A subcontractor is a firm that does jobs for another firm.

Rules on driving and rest times and the ban on sleeping in the truck cab are to be enforced by specially trained staff, including against foreign haulage firms. Large logistics companies are to be required to guarantee that their subcontractors respect collective agreements, the minimum wage and working-time rules. The program calls for a functioning collective-bargaining partnership, including in mail-order retail. The Greens also want to act against obstruction of works council formation at delivery services.

The Greens want to expand working from home in the public sector and promote co-working spaces close to where people live, especially in rural areas. The program argues this makes work more flexible, saves space and cuts commuting. Employee co-determination is to be adapted to the new world of work.

Many people work from home today. The Greens want to make this possible more often in public service. Shared offices should be set up in rural areas. Then fewer people have to travel far to work.

Public-sector employees are to be able to work from home wherever feasible and desired, with the necessary equipment, IT and legal framework. Public employers are to rent or provide co-working desks near employees' homes, especially in vacant buildings. Urban development and structural funding is to be opened to private and cooperative co-working spaces. The workplace ordinance is to be adapted to mobile work without lowering protection standards. The state staff representation law is to be reviewed and amended if needed.

The Greens want to tackle child poverty with a dedicated pact, arguing that an especially large number of minors in NRW are affected. Local prevention chains would be expanded statewide so that support on the ground is coordinated.

Many children in NRW are poor. The Greens want a pact against child poverty. Professionals in each town should work together better. That way children get the right help.

Together with municipalities, childcare workers, teachers, doctors, social workers, associations and administrations would be linked up. The party relies on the Kindergrundsicherung (basic child benefit) to get money to poor children. Working with the federal government, it wants parents to actually claim benefits from the education and participation package; the state would help build the Kinderchancenportal (an online portal) for this. Family counseling in neighborhoods would be strengthened. Beyond that, the platform aims to reduce poverty overall, for instance through childcare, help for the formerly long-term unemployed and support for municipal social planning.

The Greens want to better reach teenagers and young adults living in poverty, since not all of them seek out government offices on their own. Street work, youth vocational assistance and youth residences would be expanded.

Poor young people need help that comes to them. The Greens want more street work in affected neighborhoods. There should be more job counseling. There should also be more residences for young people.

Mobile youth work would be equipped to do more in the hardest-hit neighborhoods. Counseling is also planned for care leavers, meaning young people who leave residential youth care when they turn 18. Youth centers would be funded and refer young people to counseling when needed, especially youth vocational assistance, which also addresses housing and psychosocial problems. To prevent homelessness, youth residences that are also open to young adults would be expanded.

The Greens want to improve debt counseling and make it free of charge, partly in response to the fallout from the COVID crisis. The split in responsibility between municipalities and the state for debt and insolvency counseling would end.

Many people are in debt. The Greens want better counseling for them. The counseling should be free. Right now, towns and the state handle different parts. That should change.

Currently municipalities are responsible for debt counseling and the state for insolvency counseling, which the party says hinders effective help. This split would be ended quickly, and failed small business owners would also get support. Consumer insolvency proceedings should be a last resort; where the state has influence over public creditors such as tax offices, out-of-court settlements should become more common. Quality standards would be developed with municipalities, welfare associations and consumer organizations.

The Greens want to support people with poor prospects in the regular job market through the so-called social labor market. Centers and counseling services for unemployed people would keep receiving state funding.

Some people have a hard time finding a job. The Greens want to help them with subsidized jobs. This is called the social labor market. Advice centers for jobless people will keep getting money.

Through the social labor market, meaning publicly subsidized employment, those affected are meant to regain a foothold in companies. To stabilize their situation, the platform relies on counseling that is independent of the state and treats people as equals. Funding for unemployment centers and counseling services would follow actual need. In addition, professional qualifications earned abroad would be recognized with less red tape, for example by accepting multilingual certificates.

The Greens aim for a labor market where people with and without disabilities can work together. Public contracts would go only to companies that meet their legal duty to employ severely disabled people, and sheltered workshops would pay more fairly.

People with disabilities have a harder time finding work. The Greens want to change that. Companies only get government contracts if they employ enough people with severe disabilities. Sheltered workshops should pay fair wages.

For pay in workshops for disabled people, the platform expects input from an ongoing nationwide participation process on a new pay system. The workshops would focus more on helping people move into the regular labor market. The state administration would hire considerably more severely disabled people. Businesses would get advice on tailoring jobs, and it would become easier to found inclusion companies, whose workforce is 30 to 50 percent people with disabilities. Participation programs beyond working life would also be developed further.

The Greens want to tie public contracts to social and environmental standards such as coverage by collective wage agreements. In addition, workplace safety enforcement would get more money and staff, and Sundays would generally stay work-free.

The state gives contracts to companies. The Greens want stricter rules for this. Companies should pay union-negotiated wages. Workplace safety checks will get more staff. Sunday should usually be a day off.

According to the platform, companies should compete on quality rather than on low wages. Jobs in the state administration such as cleaning and reception services would no longer be outsourced. Minimum workplace safety standards would also apply to EU workers in farming, meat plants, and logistics; the "fair mobility" advice centers would be supported. To keep Sundays work-free, the state's shop opening hours law would be amended.

The Greens want work and personal circumstances to fit together better. To that end, they would promote lifetime working-time accounts, working from home, co-working spaces close to home, and part-time vocational training and university study.

Work should fit better with people's lives. The Greens want accounts that track working time over a whole career. Then people can work less in some years. For example, when they care for relatives. Working from home should also get easier.

Companies would get help becoming more family- and caregiving-friendly. A right to work from home is supported, and decentralized co-working spaces are meant to spare people long commutes. The state would introduce lifetime working-time accounts first for its own civil servants. Part-time vocational training and study would be made easier. Older people who want to keep working would be able to do so and would be supported.

The Greens want to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities consistently in NRW. Accessibility is to be planned into construction from the start, and people with disabilities should gain easier access to work, volunteering and public administration.

The Greens want more participation for people with disabilities. New public buildings and homes should have no barriers. Public offices should give information in easy language and sign language. Companies should find it easier to hire people with disabilities.

The action plan on the convention is to be developed further, and the inclusion register and participation reporting are to be expanded. The monitoring body is to be resourced according to need, and the independence of the state commissioner strengthened. People who need assistance or aids should get help quickly and without red tape. Politics and administration are to communicate in easy language, sign language, with subtitles or in Braille, and also take invisible disabilities into account. Self-advocacy organizations of people with disabilities are to receive more funding.

The Greens distinguish between sex work and human trafficking for sexual exploitation, which they want to combat. Sex workers are to have safe working conditions, social security coverage and reliable counseling services.

The Greens separate sex work from human trafficking. They want to fight human trafficking. Sex workers should be able to work safely. They should have health insurance. Advice centers should help them, also if they want to quit.

Specialized counseling centers are to receive secure funding, especially in rural areas. They are to advise, support and, where wanted, help people leave sex work. The Greens want to counter stigma and seek dialogue with those affected to do so. The roundtable on prostitution is to be reestablished.