Linke on work and social affairs

The Left wants to set up public neighborhood canteens across the city offering healthy meals starting at 3 euros. They are also meant to be meeting places for neighbors and to counter poverty and loneliness.

The Left wants to open canteens in the neighborhoods. They offer healthy meals from 3 euros. Every day at least one meal is made only from plants. Neighbors can meet there.

A total of 20 neighborhood canteens are planned. The party wants to provide 10 million euros a year to set them up and run them. At least one dish per day must be purely plant-based. The party justifies the plan with the need for affordable food and for social spaces.

Under the guiding idea of a "caring city," the Left wants to launch pilot projects for care centers that bring social services, culture and health care together close to where people live. Vacant shopping centers in particular would be taken into public ownership for this purpose. New housing would always be planned together with social and green infrastructure.

The Left wants to create care centers in neighborhoods. People can meet there without buying anything. There is help, culture and cheap food. Empty shopping centers should belong to the city for this. Neighbors should help decide.

The centers would let people repair, share and borrow things; neighbors would help decide how they are used through a participation process. The Left wants public money to get them started and agreements between civil society and public authorities to secure them, with neighborhood care councils running them. For financing, the platform points to mixed rents from commercial and non-profit-oriented tenants. Planned services include help for homeless people, people without health insurance, children and teens, single parents, seniors and family caregivers, plus low-cost canteens and free public toilets. Every newly planned residential building, municipal or private, would have at least one common room for tenants.

The Left wants a binding agreement with social service providers and welfare associations that secures funding for social services over the long term. For-profit providers in social services are to be pushed back, and the rules for public grants simplified.

Social service providers are groups that offer counseling or help, for example. The Left wants to give them steady and secure funding. Their workers should be paid according to union wage agreements. There should be less red tape. Companies that want to profit from social services should become fewer.

The pact is meant to combine reliable funding, secured collective wage standards and less bureaucracy. A central reserve for wage increases is to ensure that collectively agreed raises also reach the providers' employees. The party wants to stop the growth of private for-profit providers; in the medium to long term, nonprofit and municipal services are to take priority, including through bringing services back under municipal control and through public-law institutions with a say for staff and users. Grant law is to be reformed to cut administrative costs; recurring needs are to be funded long term and the budget made accessible through digital tools.

The Left wants to reverse the decline in collective bargaining coverage in Berlin. It plans to use the Bundesrat to abolish employer associations that operate without collective agreements and to require craft guilds to negotiate such agreements. According to the platform, economic change must not come at workers' expense.

A collective agreement sets pay and hours for many workplaces. In Berlin, fewer and fewer people work under one. The Left wants to change that. Employer groups without such agreements should no longer exist. Craft guilds should have to negotiate pay agreements.

The platform says only 45 percent of Berlin's employees work in companies covered by collective agreements, less than the national figure. The Left wants to back demands made by the DGB trade union federation and hold talks with employer associations. Through the Bundesrat, it wants to try to abolish so-called OT associations, meaning employer associations for companies without collective agreements. Craft guilds would be required to conduct collective bargaining. During the economic transition, jobs are to be preserved, workers retrained, and deindustrialization prevented.

The Left wants the shift to a climate-friendly economy not to come at the expense of workers and jobs. More companies should be able to train their staff, supported by in-house training guides (Qualifikationslots*innen).

The economy should become climate-friendly. The Left wants no one to lose their job because of this. Workers should be able to learn new skills. Guides inside the companies should help. These guides are co-workers who organize training.

The platform sees good conditions in Berlin-Brandenburg for an industry without fossil fuels, because the share of renewable energy is already high. More companies should be put in a position to train their employees, and training networks should receive support. The training guides are to come from the workforce itself. They would identify training needs, help plan the measures and apply for funding, and check the results.

The Left wants to work with unions to achieve better working conditions in the IT sector, at startups, and in click and gig work. The ban on Sunday opening in retail should stay in place, and there should be fewer Sundays on which stores may open.

Many people work through apps and online platforms. Often they have no social protection. The Left wants to change this together with the unions. Stores should stay closed on Sundays. There should be fewer special Sundays when stores may open.

In the platform's view, click and gig work creates employment that only appears to be self-employment and offers no social protection. The Left wants occupational safety rules to be followed in these fields. It rejects any loosening of the ban on Sunday sales, explicitly including for small digital supermarkets.

The Left wants every company in which the state of Berlin holds a stake to pay according to collective agreements, with subsidiaries reaching the pay level of their parent companies. Outsourced service subsidiaries should return to the parent companies; the party also aims for a shorter workweek without loss of pay.

The state of Berlin owns many companies. The Left wants everyone there to be paid under a union contract. Subsidiaries should pay as well as the main company. Outsourced subsidiaries should become part of the main company again. People should work fewer hours and earn the same.

The platform names the service subsidiaries BT, CFM, VSG and T&M GmbH as examples that, in its view, were spun off to avoid collective agreements. They are to be merged back into their parent companies without delay, including under corporate law, to put employees on a fully equal footing. Secure jobs under collective agreements should also exist at social service providers and all firms that receive public money. For other companies, the Left plans better inspections, enforcement of protective rules, and advice for especially vulnerable workers.

The Left wants employees of independent nonprofit providers (Freie Träger) to be no worse off than state employees. The state should fully reimburse wages modeled on the TV-L, the public-sector pay agreement of the states, and providers should in future be required to pay union-scale wages.

Independent providers are, for example, associations that do social work. The Left wants their staff to earn as much as state employees. The state should pay the full union-scale wages. Providers would then have to pay those wages. Normal labor rights should also apply in church-run facilities.

Grants should rise when pay scales rise so that providers do not have to cut services; additional benefits such as the Hauptstadtzulage (capital city allowance) and the costs of works council activity should also be reimbursed. A transparency database would show which providers pay union-scale wages. In the long run, the Left aims for a generally binding sector-wide agreement for social services based on the TV-L. For church-run facilities, it wants full labor law protection to apply instead of church labor law. At the federal level, it advocates a right for social workers to refuse to testify.

The Left wants to pay the Hauptstadtzulage (capital-city pay supplement) to employees of universities, nonprofit service providers, and indirect state bodies as well. The platform points to Berlin's rising cost of living and views the current rule as putting these groups at a disadvantage.

The capital-city allowance is extra pay. Right now, public service workers get it. The Left wants more people to get it. This includes workers at universities and at nonprofit service providers. The party says life in Berlin has become expensive.

The capital-city allowance was introduced in 2020 for the public service, which the platform says happened with the Left's involvement. Three more groups are to receive it in the future: university staff, employees of nonprofit service providers, and workers in the indirect state service. The party calls their current exclusion unequal treatment that it intends to end.

The Left wants to create at least one more public holiday in Berlin and to make up for holidays that fall on a Sunday by giving the following Monday off. It opposes more Sunday work, which it says burdens families, workers in insecure jobs, and people doing care work.

Berlin has ten public holidays a year. That is fewer than any other German state. The Left wants at least one more holiday. If a holiday falls on a Sunday, Monday should be a day off. Fewer stores should open on Sundays.

The make-up rule for holidays falling on a Sunday would be written into Berlin's holiday law. The ban on Sunday work would be monitored and enforced more strictly. The party rejects any loosening for retail, especially for small digital supermarkets, and wants fewer Sundays on which stores may open. For late-night corner shops (Spätis), it wants to examine whether exceptions are possible, provided that worker protections apply, the owner personally runs the shop on Sundays, and the line to other retail is clear.

The Left wants to give Berlin's workplace safety agency (LAGetSi) more staff so that businesses are inspected more effectively. In addition, prosecutors are to pursue obstruction of works councils more consistently, and every district is to get a commissioner for good work.

A Berlin agency checks workplace safety in businesses. The Left wants more staff for this agency. Then it can check more businesses. Employers who block works councils should be punished. Every district should get a contact person for good work.

LAGetSi would also increasingly check how private employers record working hours. Businesses could be required, on a spot-check basis, to submit their working-time records electronically within a set deadline. The platform cites the COVID-19 pandemic and hot summers as evidence of why such inspections matter. The specialized prosecution unit for union busting, meaning interference with union and works council activity, would be strengthened professionally. Commissioners for good work currently exist in three districts and would be installed in the remaining ones as well.

The Left wants to use business and transformation subsidies to push companies to sign training agreements. The platform cites the changing economy, which it says demands new skills, and the need to secure skilled workers.

Work in many companies is changing a lot. Workers need new skills because of this. The Left wants more training alongside the job. Companies should make firm agreements on this. The state should use subsidy money to get there.

According to the platform, Berlin companies make too little use of the existing funding tools for training. The agreements would spell out which skills will be needed and how employees will acquire them. Funding would also go to training alliances and to staffing reserves so that companies can release employees for courses even when they are short of personnel.

The Left wants to advance industry-specific minimum fees and model contracts for solo self-employed workers in order to push back insecure work and bogus self-employment. Self-employed women in need would receive a maternity benefit from a state program around childbirth, because they have no entitlement to maternity protection.

Many people in Berlin work alone as self-employed. The Left wants minimum fees for them. That is a lower limit for pay. The state itself should pay fair fees. Self-employed mothers in need should get money around the time of birth.

Where the state is the client or funds work through grants, it would pay fees that people can live on. Public contracting would be designed so that solo self-employed workers can apply more easily and have better chances. Subsidized co-working spaces with low rents would be set up in the districts. Together with unions and professional associations, the party plans a networking, training, and advocacy hub modeled on Leipzig's "Haus der Selbstständigen." The maternity benefit would be paid with little red tape, if necessary with a needs check afterward, as with Berlin's COVID aid.

The Left is pushing for the EU directive on platform work to be transposed thoroughly into federal law. Delivery services would have to employ their couriers directly, and platforms would be liable as general contractors. The platform links platform work to bogus self-employment, disreputable subcontractors, and management by algorithm.

Many people work for apps like Uber or Lieferando. The Left sees poor working conditions there. Delivery services should have to hire their couriers themselves. Platforms should also be liable for their subcontractors. Berlin should carry out more checks.

According to the platform, almost six percent of people in Germany earn their main income through digital platform work, and it is especially common in Berlin. General contractor liability would apply to all platforms, while the direct-hire requirement would apply to platform-based delivery services. At the state level, more frequent inspections would target undeclared work, minimum wage violations, and gaps in workplace safety.

The Left wants to better protect workers in Berlin from heat, arguing that heat-related sick days have risen sharply. It also wants the state to run its own checks on whether employers document working conditions in writing and to fine violations.

The Left wants to protect people from heat at work. State employees should get paid breaks to cool down. Employers must write down the working conditions. Berlin should check this itself. Employers who break the rule should pay a fine.

For state employees, the program calls for better heat protection plans, shade, cooling options and paid cool-down breaks. It adds optional working-time arrangements that skip the hottest hours of the day. In the private sector, the state office for occupational safety (LAGetSi) is to provide more advice and inspections. For the Nachweisgesetz, the law requiring employers to state working conditions in writing, the Left wants to introduce state-run checks. According to the program, this law is often violated in precarious jobs and platform work.

The Left wants Berlin's state minimum wage and the minimum wage for public contracts to be equal and high enough to prevent poverty, including in old age. Both would be tied to the entry level of the public-sector pay agreement for the states. Through the Bundesrat, the minimum wage should also apply in sheltered workshops for people with disabilities.

Berlin has its own minimum wage. There is also a minimum wage for public contracts. The Left wants both to be the same. They should rise with public-sector pay. People in workshops for disabled people should also get the minimum wage.

The minimum pay is to rise regularly in line with general wage growth. To achieve this, the program wants to link both minimum wages to the entry level of the TV-L, the collective pay agreement for state public employees. A Bundesrat initiative is meant to change the federal minimum wage law so that it also covers workers in sheltered workshops for people with disabilities. The organizations running these workshops should not have to bear the extra costs alone.

The Left wants Berlin to use its powers as a state so that more workers are paid under collective agreements. The program names four levers, from public procurement to business subsidies. It also wants to examine, together with the unions, whether Berlin should set up a chamber of labor.

The Left wants more people in Berlin to be paid under union contracts. A union contract is a pay deal between unions and employers. Whoever gets contracts or money from the state should pay these wages. The Left also wants to look into a chamber of labor. That is a body that speaks for all workers.

First, the requirement to pay collectively agreed wages in public contracts is to be applied throughout and checked. Second, nonprofit providers and grant recipients should pay such wages and be reimbursed for the cost. Third, collectively agreed pay is to become a criterion for business subsidies again, and fourth, collective agreements should be declared generally binding at state level as often as possible. A chamber of labor modeled on Bremen, Saarland, Austria and Luxembourg is only an option for the Left if it does not weaken existing worker representation.

The Left wants to require employers to tell their employees about their right to Bildungszeit (paid educational leave). According to the program, few people use this leave because they do not know about it or fear disadvantages at work.

Workers can take paid time off for training. This is called educational leave. Many people do not know this. The Left wants employers to tell their workers about it. If they do not, the right stays valid the next year.

According to the program, educational leave can be used for civic education, job-related training and qualification for volunteer work. Employers would have to point out the entitlement and the fact that it may expire at the end of the year. The notice is also meant to counter the worry that the employer disapproves of its use. If the employer fails to give notice, the entitlement would carry over to the following year.

The Left wants to start a new publicly funded employment program for the long-term unemployed. It is meant to offer socially useful work at collectively agreed wages, after Berlin's Solidarisches Grundeinkommen (solidarity basic income) job program ended without a replacement, according to the program.

The Left wants a new program for people without work. The state should offer them useful jobs. The jobs should pay union-level wages. Nobody should be forced. The goal is a lasting job.

The program is meant to open up lasting career prospects and a path into the regular labor market. The Left contrasts it with low-paid schemes that people are compelled to join. Where Berlin takes part in employment schemes run by the federal employment agency, the state should top up pay to at least the state minimum wage. The program accuses the federal government of largely ending labor market support.

The Left calls for a binding state program against loneliness that reaches people before isolation becomes chronic. It also wants neighborhood canteens as local places for affordable meals and social contact. The program sees loneliness as often resulting from poverty, overload and displacement.

Many people in Berlin are lonely. The Left wants a fixed state program against this. Trained workers should reach out to lonely people. There should also be neighborhood canteens. People can eat there cheaply and meet others.

The state program is meant to combine outreach services with social prescribing, meaning referral to social activities rather than purely medical treatment. Link workers in the districts are planned for this. The aim is an active infrastructure rooted in local neighborhoods. Neighborhood canteens are to be set up mainly in socially disadvantaged areas and be easy to access. According to the program, loneliness has grown since the Covid pandemic and affects all age groups.

The Left wants to set up a central phone line for social hardship that refers people to the right services. It argues that Berlin's support network is fragmented and many people cannot find the service they need. Street outreach work and the welfare offices are also to be expanded.

Berlin has many support services. But many people do not find the right one. The Left wants one central phone number for help. Welfare offices should get more staff. Public offices should also write in plain language.

The hotline is meant to refer callers to suitable support services. The Left wants to expand street outreach work to reach groups that are hard to reach and especially vulnerable. Public authorities should, as a rule, also communicate in plain language. The program describes the district welfare offices as overloaded, with long processing times for some benefits. They are to get more staff and digital processes that speed up applications and ease the burden on employees.

The Left wants to record and fight poverty in Berlin comprehensively, with a focus on children and older people. Free lunches at elementary schools and the free student transit pass are to stay. People who do not claim benefits they are entitled to should be informed about their rights.

Many children and old people in Berlin are poor. The Left wants to keep free lunch at elementary schools. The free transit pass for students should also stay. Many people do not claim the support they could get. The Left wants to tell them about their rights.

Reporting on poverty, social conditions and health is to be merged to give a full picture of the city's social situation. According to the program, child poverty in Berlin is well above the national average and is linked to parents' poverty. For older people, the Left wants to ease the effects of old-age poverty wherever the state and districts have influence. So-called hidden poverty, such as unclaimed old-age income support or housing benefit, is to be made visible. Public buildings such as schools or libraries should be easy for clubs and initiatives to use outside opening hours.

At the federal level, the Left is pushing for an individual minimum income without sanctions of about 1,400 euros including housing costs. It rejects the federal government's new basic income support, arguing that it pushes people out of apartments deemed too expensive and raises pressure on job seekers. In Berlin it wants to use the state's legal leeway for benefit recipients.

The Left wants to replace basic income support. Every person in need should get about 1,400 euros a month. Rent is included in that. There should be no cuts as punishment. In Berlin, the Left wants to give people on benefits better support.

In regions with high rents, the amount would be correspondingly higher. The standard rate is to be at least 813 euros, since the Left considers today's rates to be calculated too low. The program criticizes tougher sanctions and the priority of job placement over training. In Berlin, the problems of unemployed people, single parents, people with disabilities, refugees and older people on benefits are to get more attention. The program calls the clearing offices that exist in some districts, which work as independent guides attached to the Jobcenter, a successful model.

The Left wants job centers to have more staff per benefit recipient. The job centers' digital services should be accessible to everyone. Counseling on the Bildungs- und Teilhabepaket (education and participation package for children) is to be made permanent and expanded.

The Left wants more staff in job centers. That way people get better help there. The job centers' websites should work for everyone. Children should get money for school and leisure more easily. There should be more advice for that.

The program calls for a better staff-to-client ratio in job centers. Online portals are to be made accessible, and people without a device of their own should be able to use one. Counseling on the education and participation package is to continue as a fixed part of Berlin's social infrastructure. It should be offered citywide, in several languages, close to home and with low barriers. The aim is for children and young people to receive the benefits they are entitled to regardless of their family's situation.

The Left wants the caps on rent and heating costs that authorities cover for benefit recipients brought in line with actual rents. No one should have to pay part of the rent out of their basic living allowance. Exceptions for homeless people are to be used more often.

Offices pay the rent for people on benefits. There are upper limits for that. The Left thinks these limits are too low. They should match real rents in Berlin. Then people do not have to cut back on food.

The reference values in the AV Wohnen, Berlin's administrative rule on housing costs, are to be calculated with a method that reflects the rental market realistically. Higher surcharges should be possible when that is the only way someone can keep or newly rent an apartment. The Left wants to restore coverage of tenant association fees, which the Senate cut. The trial clause, which permits exceptions to the limits, is to be made permanent and better known. It should apply when an apartment costs less than a place in a shared shelter; the program says this saves money.

The Left wants every shelter where authorities place homeless people to be under contract and meet fixed quality standards. Additional specialized shelters are to be created for families with children and other especially vulnerable groups.

Authorities place people without a home in shelters. The Left wants fixed rules for these shelters. There should be enough space, cleanliness and advice. Families with children should get their own shelters.

The program calls placement under the Allgemeines Sicherheits- und Ordnungsgesetz (ASOG, Berlin's general public order law) the most expensive and worst way of avoiding street homelessness. Minimum standards are to cover personal space, child protection, hygiene, meals, privacy and psychosocial support. Residents are to get easily reachable debt and addiction counseling, help with authorities and help finding an apartment. More specialized shelters with enough counseling staff are planned for homeless families with minor children. To that end, the State Office for Refugee Affairs and Accommodation is to be strengthened in staff and organization.

The Left wants more shelters that are open around the clock all year and wants to add counseling to the winter cold-weather aid program. People living on the street are to have safe places to retreat to. Public spaces should not be built in ways that keep homeless people away.

The Left wants more places to sleep for people without shelter. These places should be open day and night. In winter there should also be advice there. There should be help in summer too. Park benches should not stop people from sleeping.

The Kältehilfe (cold-weather aid) from October to April is to be secured and turned into a 'Kältehilfe plus' with counseling and professional support; there are to be considerably more wheelchair-accessible facilities. Some of the places are to stay open all year, and emergency shelter is to be managed better. The Left wants to strengthen heat relief and outreach social work. So-called safe places, such as small housing units, shelter containers or supervised single rooms, are to protect against violence and weather. According to the program, libraries, citizens' offices, hospitals, pools or parks could be considered as seasonal safe spaces. Seating and lying areas in public space should not prevent long stays or sleeping.

The Left wants to tie public contracts more closely to the employment of people with disabilities and award more of them to inclusive businesses. Sheltered workshops should do more to place people in regular jobs, and at the federal level the party pushes for the minimum wage in workshops.

The Left wants more jobs for people with disabilities. Berlin gives contracts to companies. Companies that hire people with disabilities should get an advantage. Sheltered workshops should pay the minimum wage. Workshops should help people find regular jobs.

Berlin's public procurement law is to get more social criteria, and creating additional jobs and training places for people with disabilities would become an explicit award criterion. Workshops for people with disabilities (WfbM) are to be developed so that they place people in the regular labor market, which the party says always takes priority. The state should make it easier to use tools such as the Budget für Arbeit (a wage subsidy for regular employment), supported employment, assisted training and job coaching. Red tape in Berlin should not block any job or training contract, and the party wants further easing at the federal level.

The Left wants to create a Berlin Altenhilfestrukturgesetz (elder care structure law) that sets binding rules for services for older people in every district. The aim is to ease the effects of old-age poverty and make living conditions more equal across districts.

The Left wants a new law for older people in Berlin. It should secure meeting places and advice in every district. Older people with little money should be able to live better. At the federal level the party calls for higher pensions.

The law would flesh out Section 71 of Social Code Book XII, which covers assistance for the elderly, at state level and build on the 2023 draft by the state seniors' advisory council. The party wants to start the process right away, make it a priority and provide the money needed. Neighborhood centers, advice offices, local clubs, senior meeting places and mobility services would be set up everywhere according to need, including in new housing areas. At the federal level, the party backs a higher pension level, minimum pensions that prevent poverty and a higher minimum wage.

The Left wants to give outreach counseling for older people more funding and more trained staff. The transition into retirement is also to be better supported. In the long run, counseling is to be bundled in one place and delivered more often in people's homes.

The Left wants better advice for older people. Advisers should visit people at home more often. There should be more money and more staff for this. People should also get help when they start retirement.

An existing project that offers help and records care needs is to be developed further so that it also supports people entering retirement. The platform calls for more funding and more qualified staff, partly through better pay. The service is to be coordinated with other outreach services, especially the district social commissions. Those commissions are to become better known and get more powers, and better resourcing is to be examined. The party also wants to expand multilingual services.

The Left wants to fight child and family poverty and make public services for children and young people free across the board. It intends to push for a basic child benefit through the Bundesrat. According to the platform, nearly a third of Berlin's minors depend on state support.

Many children in Berlin live in poverty. The Left wants to change that. Public services for children should cost nothing. For example, swimming pools should be free for children. The Left also wants a basic child benefit for all of Germany. That is a fixed payment for every child.

The state commission on preventing child and family poverty is to be strengthened financially and structurally. At the federal level, the party wants to work through the Bundesrat toward a Kindergrundsicherung (basic child benefit) that protects against poverty. Public services are to be free without applications or means testing. The platform points to free daycare, free after-school care through third grade and free lunches at elementary schools. As further examples it names swimming pool admission and cooking at youth clubs, and additional forms of free access are to be examined.

The Left wants to create a fund from which organizations carrying out public tasks can pay for better working conditions. The platform's reasoning is that agreements such as collective contracts to reduce workloads put a financial strain on these organizations.

Some organizations do tasks for the city. Better working conditions cost them a lot of money. The Left wants to set up a fund for this. A fund is a pot of money. The organizations get money back from it.

The fund is to reimburse measures that help providers keep or recruit skilled workers. The condition is proof that working conditions actually improve. The measure must also strengthen essential public services.

The Left wants to pay public-sector employees better and prevent old-age poverty in the lower pay grades. Differences in pay and equipment between the central administration and the boroughs would be eliminated so that the boroughs can fill their positions.

The Left wants to pay city employees better. No one should be poor in old age. Borough jobs often pay less than Senate jobs. The party wants to change that.

A single job-grading office at the Senate Department for Finance and Personnel would make sure positions are classified the same way everywhere. The TV-L and TVöD collective agreements would be gradually aligned. The party also wants this to end unequal treatment at university hospitals and in other areas.