Linke on work and social affairs

The Left wants six weeks of vacation for all employees and, in the long run, a 35-hour week without loss of pay. Employees are to get a right to full-time work and a right to return from part-time. The party wants to defend the Working Hours Act and the eight-hour day.

All employees should get six weeks of vacation. Later, the work week should be only 35 hours. Pay should stay the same. People who work part-time should be allowed to return to full-time. The eight-hour day should stay.

The shorter working week is to be reached in dialogue with companies and unions. The Tariftreuegesetz (law tying public contracts to collective wage standards) is to be developed further, works councils and staff councils strengthened, and the staff representation law reviewed. Workplace safety authorities are to get enough staff. In state-owned companies, temporary agency work and fixed-term contracts without objective reason are to be limited. Monitoring software is to be banned for people working from home, and the right to be unreachable is to be strengthened. Employment companies, production schools and workplace health prevention are to keep receiving support.

The Left wants a statewide action plan against poverty with binding targets. It also wants reliably funded minimum standards for social infrastructure in every region. The platform describes poverty not as personal failure but as a result of structural inequality.

The Left wants a plan against poverty for the whole state. The plan should have fixed goals. Every region should have advice and help services. The Left says poor people are not to blame for being poor.

A social and care planning process coordinated across the state is meant to spot needs early and direct resources where they are needed. Building on that, the Left wants minimum standards, including for debt, social and family counseling and guardianship associations. Mobile and digital services are to make help reachable in rural areas. To fight homelessness, the party wants to draw on the Rostock pilot project "Housing First."

The Left wants to press the federal government for welfare benefits that cover real living costs. Sanctions and bureaucratic hurdles are to be reduced. Job centers and social welfare offices are to become easier to reach.

The Left wants higher welfare benefits. The money should really be enough to live on. There should be fewer penalties and less paperwork. Job centers and welfare offices should be easier to reach.

The call for higher benefits and fewer sanctions is addressed to the federal government. Job centers and social welfare offices are to be reachable through mobile and digital services as well. Duplicate checks are to be dropped. For digitalization, the Left plans an innovation and digitalization fund that also covers long-term care and integration assistance for people with disabilities.

The Left wants to remove barriers in public and private settings and make accessibility a condition for public investment. The minimum wage is to apply in sheltered workshops for people with disabilities. It also plans a state allowance for deaf people and a dedicated commissioner.

People with disabilities should be able to take part everywhere. Public contracts should only go to accessible projects. The minimum wage should apply in workshops for people with disabilities. Deaf people should get their own allowance from the state.

In workshops, sector collective agreements would apply alongside the statutory minimum wage. Modeled on the state allowance for blind people, the Left wants an allowance for deaf people. The contact office for accessibility would become a competence center, and the state would get its own commissioner for people with disabilities. Sign language would become a language of instruction at the state center for hearing, and future public employees could learn it and Braille. Polling places, public buildings, cafeterias and cultural venues are to become accessible, and para sports would get more funding.

The Left wants to push at the federal level for removing value-added tax from staple foods. On energy, households are to be protected from energy poverty and supply cutoffs; it should be possible to require utilities to reverse cutoffs.

The Left wants to keep food and energy affordable. Basic foods should no longer carry sales tax. Nobody should have power or water cut off. People with debts should be able to pay in small installments.

Food is to be labeled in a uniform and barrier-free way at the federal and EU level, including mandatory regional labels. Energy advice services are to be secured and expanded. The state is to create a legal basis for making energy and water suppliers lift cutoffs. For the shift to cleaner heating, an independent energy arbitration board is planned that also covers district heating. Tenants are to be protected from costs that can arise when biofuels are blended into fossil-fuel heating systems.