Linke on work and social affairs

The Left wants to address the labor shortage with better pay, more attractive vocational training, good infrastructure and affordable living conditions. No one should have to move away, and young people should come to Thuringia. The party also relies on strong unions.

Thuringia lacks many workers. The Left wants better pay and better job training. Life in the state should be affordable. This way people stay and young people move here. Strong unions should help with this.

The platform points to out-migration since the 1990s, especially of young women, and to low birth rates after reunification. In the coming years, more people will retire than enter the workforce, it says. According to the platform, more than 340,000 new workers are needed by 2030. The party calls this the Thuringian path of a humane and social democracy.

The Left wants to press the federal government and the Bundesrat on measures the state cannot adopt alone. These include a price cap on energy and food, a Kindergrundsicherung (basic child allowance), tax policy that eases burdens, and pensions without disadvantages for eastern Germans.

Some things only the federal government can decide. The Left wants to push for them there. It wants a price limit for energy and food. It wants a basic allowance for children against poverty. Pensions in the east should not be worse.

The party wants the basic child allowance to actually keep children out of poverty. Pensions are to protect against old-age poverty and no longer leave eastern Germans worse off. As long as the federal government does not act, the Left wants to offset disadvantages at the state level as far as possible. The platform criticizes the federal government for cuts and for its handling of the heating law, and frames a vote for the Left as a signal against the governing coalition.

The Left wants working-time models that make it easier to combine a job with childcare and caring for relatives, and that share care work more fairly between women and men. It names the four-day week and other forms of shorter hours as options.

The Left wants new models for working hours. People should be able to combine work, children and care more easily. Women and men should share these tasks more fairly. The party also thinks about a four-day week.

The platform argues that women carry most of the family and care work, so they often earn less and are more likely to be poor, including in old age. For industry, health and social professions, and public administration, it wants to work out how a four-day week or other reductions in hours could be designed. The state of Thuringia is meant to set an example on working conditions and pay. The platform treats employees as the experts on how work should be organized in the future.

The Left wants Thuringia's public procurement law, with its minimum pay rate, to apply to municipal contracts as well. State subsidies are to be tied to collectively agreed wages and good working conditions.

The state gives contracts to companies. A special minimum wage applies to them. The Left wants this rule for towns and cities too. Only companies with fair pay should get state money.

The minimum pay rate for public contracts is to stay above the general minimum wage and rise quickly in the coming years, with collective agreements taking priority. The party wants to tie state subsidies for companies and institutions to pay at collectively agreed levels and high-quality employment. A digital, public register of collective agreements modeled on Berlin's is planned for this purpose. Procurement and subsidy policy as a whole is to apply social and environmental criteria.

The Left wants to expand workers' co-determination in companies and promote economic democracy. A specialized public prosecutor's office is to act against the obstruction of works councils, and a chamber of labor is to represent employees' interests.

Workers should have more say in their companies. Some companies block works councils. A special prosecutor's office should act against that. The Left also wants a chamber of labor. That is a public body that speaks for workers.

Companies are to get support when they extend co-determination or try new forms, such as "democracy time" with paid release to exercise participation rights. The platform cites studies saying that companies with co-determination act in a more social, democratic and sustainable way. The chamber of labor is to be developed with the trade unions as a body under public law. The party also plans a long-term workshop process called "Work and Life in the Future" and an education campaign on employee rights.

The Left wants the minimum wage to apply in workshops for people with disabilities as well. It also wants workshop employees to be supported in moving to the regular labor market.

People with disabilities often work in special workshops. The minimum wage does not apply there today. The Left wants to change that. It also wants to help them move into regular companies.

The platform announces measures to ease the move from workshops into regular employment. Unemployed people with disabilities are to find jobs more quickly. Work assistance, meaning personal support in the workplace, is to be expanded.

The Left wants more staff for the state's occupational safety authority so that violations and exploitative employment can be punished. An anti-stress regulation is to oblige employers to take protective measures.

The Left wants more staff for workplace safety. The office should be able to punish violations better. There should also be a new rule against stress. Employers must then protect the health of their workers.

Occupational health and safety is part of the state office for consumer protection and is to get more positions there. The planned regulation is to require protection against both physical and mental illness. The party also wants to support companies, works councils and staff councils with workplace health management.

The Left wants to give people who have been out of work for years a lasting prospect through publicly funded employment. The state's labor market programs are to be adequately financed for this.

Some people have been looking for work for years. The Left wants to help them. The state should fund jobs for them. The state's programs should get enough money.

The platform notes that the number of long-term unemployed in Thuringia has fallen, but that many are still looking for a job. After the earlier community work project ended, the party wants to find new ways to offer public employment. It names sufficient funding for the state labor programs as a precondition.

The Left wants to push in the Bundesrat for a 15-euro minimum wage, a minimum training allowance, and basic income support without sanctions. It rejects a longer working life and any weakening of employee rights.

The Left wants to fight for better rules in the Bundesrat. The minimum wage should rise to 15 euros. Bürgergeld should rise with prices every year. Later there should be basic support without penalties. People should not have to work more years.

Bürgergeld (citizen's income) is first to be raised automatically by the previous year's loss in purchasing power and later replaced by poverty-proof basic support without sanctions. Apprentices are to receive a minimum allowance that protects against poverty. The platform also calls for equal pay for work of equal value and an end to low wages, the gender pay gap, contracts for work, temporary agency work, and fixed-term contracts without objective reason. For immigrant skilled workers, the recommendations of the state parliament's inquiry commission on racism regarding labor market policy are to be implemented.

The Left wants to create a fund that all businesses pay into and from which businesses that train apprentices get money back. This is meant to create incentives for more apprenticeship places and make non-training businesses share the costs.

The Left wants a fund for job training. A fund is a shared pot of money. All businesses pay in a little. Businesses with apprentices get money back. This should create more training places.

Businesses are to pay in a small share of their gross payroll; the refund depends on the number of apprentices. The fund is also to pay for joint training arrangements, training outside the company, and training mentors. On top of that come services for all businesses, such as German courses for apprentices, advice, and courses for trainers.

The Left wants better social protection for apprentices so they do not depend on parents or side jobs. At the federal level it calls for higher minimum pay and more BAföG (student aid), and it plans its own support in the state.

The Left wants more money for apprentices. Training pay should protect against poverty. School fees and exam fees should go away. There should be cheap housing for apprentices. There should again be money for travel costs.

At the federal level, the party pushes for poverty-proof minimum apprentice pay, higher BAföG rates, a wider group of eligible people, and a state training allowance. School fees and exam fees for vocational training are to be dropped. In the state, a special program for affordable apprentice apartments and dorms is planned, along with a grant for travel and lodging costs that does not depend on parents' income. An independent complaints office is to help with conflicts and rule violations; the party wants to examine an apprentice services organization.

The Left wants to make sure no one has their electricity or heating cut off anymore. Access to energy should not depend on income.

People who do not pay the bill sometimes lose their power. The Left wants to end this. No one should be allowed to turn off the heating either. Everyone should get energy, even with little money.

The party says it will keep working to make sure energy stays affordable for everyone. Electricity and heating shutoffs would no longer happen. The demand is tied to the goal of an energy and heating transition designed with social fairness in mind.

The Left wants to press at the federal level for a Bürgergeld (citizen's income) with higher rates and no sanctions, and for an effective basic child benefit. It also calls for price caps on food, energy and rents. The program argues that no one should be poor in a rich country and that wealth must be redistributed to achieve this.

The Left wants more money for people on Bürgergeld. That is the basic welfare payment. The job center should no longer be allowed to cut it. Children should get their own basic benefit. Food, energy and rents should get a price limit.

The party intends to back Bundesrat initiatives for a sanction-free Bürgergeld and to oppose cuts by the federal government. It demands a nationwide basic child benefit and higher standard rates. As further tools against poverty, the program lists good jobs, better wages and pensions, and a price cap on food, energy and rents. Food banks are to keep receiving support as long as they are needed. At the state level, the party wants to keep funding the poverty prevention guideline and municipal social planning.

The Left wants to continue the state program "Solidarisches Zusammenleben der Generationen" (solidarity between generations) and fund it with at least 20 million euros a year. The money is meant to let municipalities secure their social infrastructure and give counseling services and family centers reliable funding.

Thuringia has a program for young and old people living together. The Left wants to grow this program. It should get at least 20 million euros every year. Towns and villages use the money for advice services and meeting places.

Through the program, municipalities receive funding for family centers, counseling services, senior citizens' officers, village caretakers and care support points. Projects in youth, education, health, care and social policy are to be better coordinated this way. In rural areas, the party wants to strengthen existing village caretakers and encourage new projects that help older people with shopping or doctor's appointments, for example. The services are to follow families' actual needs and take women's higher poverty risk into account.

The Left wants to make it easier for people with disabilities to enter the job market and to expand their say in politics and society. This includes a higher compensatory levy, a more attractive Budget für Arbeit (budget for work), and removing barriers in all areas of life.

People with disabilities often have a hard time finding work. The Left wants to change that. Companies without disabled workers should pay more. Barriers should be removed everywhere. People with very poor eyesight should also get money from the state.

At the federal level, the Left wants to push for a more attractive Budget für Arbeit and promote it in Thuringia with an information campaign. The compensatory levy, which employers pay when they employ too few severely disabled people, is to rise. Thuringia's action plan on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is to be continued with the participation of those affected, and municipal action plans are to be made permanent. The Sinnesbehindertengeld (allowance for sensory disabilities) is to be opened to severely visually impaired people and adjusted later on. Barriers are to be removed in towns and villages, in transport, in housing, and in communication.

The Left wants to attract more skilled workers from abroad and to recognize their professional qualifications faster and with less red tape. Workers who immigrate are to receive support from day one so that they stay in Thuringia long term.

The Left wants more skilled workers from other countries. Their job qualifications should be accepted faster. These workers should get help from the start. That way they should stay in Thuringia for a long time.

The platform calls for funding support and onboarding processes for foreign skilled workers, with their families taken into account as well. Advice and information on self-employment and on workers' rights should be available in at least two languages. The work of the Thuringian Alliance for Vocational Training and Skilled Labor Development and of the state's skilled-labor recruitment agency is to be made permanent. The party also names wages under collective agreements, housing for apprentices, and continuing education as key factors. Works councils, staff councils, and company managers are to get training on intercultural company concepts.