SPD on work and social affairs

The SPD wants a law for Bavaria under which only companies that comply with collective bargaining agreements can win state contracts. A minimum wage of initially 15 euros would also apply to these contracts. The party says this ensures tax money is invested in good jobs.

The state of Bavaria gives contracts to companies. The SPD wants new rules for this. Companies must follow collective agreements. These are deals between unions and employers on pay and hours. For these contracts, pay should be at least 15 euros an hour.

Contractors would also be liable for their subcontractors following legal and collectively agreed rules. A procurement minimum wage starting at 15 euros would apply to public contracts. The SPD wants to tie state subsidies to the same conditions and to guarantees on locations and jobs. Beyond that, the party supports higher collective bargaining coverage overall.

The SPD wants to give works councils and staff councils more say and have obstruction of their work prosecuted. It plans a specialized prosecutor's office for this. The aim is more democratic co-determination in companies.

Works councils speak for the workers in a company. The SPD wants to give them more rights. Some state grants should only be paid if the works council agrees. People who block works councils should be punished. Special prosecutors should handle these cases.

More say is planned on securing jobs during structural change, on staff planning and staffing levels, and on in-company training; this also covers representatives of employees with severe disabilities. Certain state subsidies would be available only with a works council's consent. A specialized prosecutor's office would independently pursue cases in which unions, works councils or disability representatives are obstructed.

The SPD wants to back unions in pushing for a 30-hour week with no loss of pay. It rejects raising the daily maximum working time, shortening rest periods, and expanding Sunday work or store opening hours.

The SPD wants people to work fewer hours. It backs the unions' goal of 30 hours a week. Pay should stay the same. A workday should not be allowed to exceed 10 hours. Stores should not stay open longer.

The legal cap of ten working hours a day is not to rise, and minimum rest periods are not to shrink. In the longer run the SPD wants to lower the daily maximum in agreement with the unions. Bavarian authorities would be urged to monitor statutory and collectively agreed working hours in line with European law.

Together with the federal government, the SPD wants to create a public employment sector offering regular jobs to people with poor prospects on the labor market. The platform says no one should be left behind.

Some people find it hard to get a job or training. The SPD wants to help them. The state itself should create jobs for them. These jobs come with social insurance. In job applications, the name should stay hidden.

The jobs would be subject to social insurance and give everyone access to working life. The SPD also favors anonymized application procedures, with the public sector leading the way. Funding for Berufseinstiegsbegleitung, a program that guides young people into working life, is to be secured for the long term.

The SPD wants to recruit skilled workers abroad as well, but link work permits to collectively agreed conditions and the consent of the works council. This is meant to keep immigration from pushing down wages and social standards.

Bavaria needs more skilled workers, also from other countries. The SPD wants them to be treated fairly. Companies should pay them union-level wages. The works council should have to agree. Authorities should check more and get more staff for that.

To tackle the skills shortage, the platform relies on a mix of school reform, training, higher labor force participation, immigration, integration, and housing and childcare. For workers from non-EU countries, all legal options would be used and expanded if needed to tie permits and placement to the collective agreement and the consent of employee representatives. The rights of immigrant, seasonal and temporary workers are to be effectively monitored, with more staff and resources for labor inspectors. A dense advice network is to be built with unions, chambers and welfare groups, and the “Faire Mobilität” (Fair Mobility) project would get lasting funding.

The SPD wants to create guidance offices that direct people in need to the right assistance and funding. The aim is for existing benefits to be claimed more often. The party also wants to give the state's social affairs ministry more weight.

The SPD wants new advice offices. People in need get help there. The offices show what support exists. They also help with applications. Every county should get one.

The guidance offices are meant to advise people in financial hardship as well as relatives of sick people and those needing care, help with applications, and connect affected people with each other. At first there would be at least one office per county, with more in cities. The SPD will also look at whether guidance services so far funded privately or by churches should get state money. Statewide service centers are planned for volunteers. In addition, the program lists local prevention networks against poverty, a program for digital access in poor households, and support for people with hoarding disorder.

The SPD wants to support neighborhoods and towns so that people can connect with each other more easily. To counter loneliness in old age, community guides would advise older people.

The SPD wants to fight loneliness. People should be able to meet more easily where they live. Older people should get advisers in their town. The SPD also wants to support meeting places and village shops.

The model is the "Gemeindeschwester Plus" project from Rhineland-Palatinate. The community guides would support seniors who do not yet need nursing care. The SPD also wants to invest in community and neighborhood centers and to back the founding of village shops. Needs in disadvantaged neighborhoods are to get special attention.

The SPD wants to launch cold-weather protection programs and make counseling centers for people at risk of losing their home available statewide. The state would support municipalities financially.

The SPD wants to help people without a home. In winter there should be warm places for them. They can sleep and shower there. Advice should be available all over Bavaria. The state gives towns money for this.

Together with independent welfare organizations, the SPD wants to set up places where homeless people can warm up, shower, and sleep; food and internet access are also planned there. Counseling centers for people facing the loss of their home, as well as debt and insolvency counseling, are to be expanded. With municipalities, the SPD wants to create so-called Flexiheime as transitional housing. The party rejects architecture designed to keep homeless people out of public spaces.

The SPD wants to create a Bavarian allowance for deaf people that offsets costs caused by their disability. The compensation payment that blind, deafblind, and severely visually impaired people receive today would be extended to all severely disabled people.

The SPD wants a new payment for deaf people. They can use it for interpreters or hearing aids, for example. Blind people already get a payment today. Soon all people with a severe disability should get it.

The allowance is meant to help with costs such as written and sign-language interpreting, co-payments for high-performance hearing aids, and therapies. Its amount would be set as an appropriate share of Bavaria's Blindengeld (allowance for blind people). The SPD justifies the plan by saying deaf and hard-of-hearing people have so far been treated unequally.

The SPD wants people with disabilities to decide freely about their work and to earn more than basic income support. It backs a higher compensatory levy for employers who employ too few people with disabilities.

People with disabilities should decide about their own work. They should earn more than basic income support. Companies without disabled workers pay a levy today. The SPD wants this levy to go up. The state should also hire more people with disabilities.

According to the program, wages should also lead to matching pension entitlements. In the regular labor market and in inclusion companies, the SPD aims for non-discriminatory working conditions, based on collective agreements where possible. The levy should be high enough that hiring is more attractive to employers than paying it. The state of Bavaria is to act as a role model by hiring people with disabilities and keeping them long term. The planned Faire-Löhne-Gesetz (fair wages law) would include rules on hiring them.

The SPD wants a more family-friendly world of work with better conditions after parental leave and wider collective bargaining coverage. Through the Bundesrat, it wants all employment to be subject to social insurance from the first euro earned, so that working mothers in particular are better protected in old age.

The SPD wants work to fit families better. Mothers should be able to return well after parental leave and move up. Every job should pay into social insurance, even small jobs. This gives mothers a better pension later.

The plan includes good conditions for returning to work, career opportunities for mothers and fair pay through broader collective agreements. Part-time vocational training would be strengthened and, especially for single parents, accompanied by childcare. Employees in social professions would get state-subsidized housing. According to the platform, the goal is to prevent poverty from the outset through education, employment, fair pay and an affordable daily life.

The SPD wants to involve older people more fully in all areas of life. It plans a funding program for accessibility, a digital fund, a digital education voucher for people over 60 and a state law on services for the elderly.

Older people should be able to take part everywhere. The SPD wants buildings, buses and trains without barriers. Older people should get a voucher for digital courses. Guides should help them with online forms.

A state implementing law for Section 71 of the Social Code Book XII is to establish integrated social planning with a basic set of services for the elderly. The "Barrierefreies Bayern" (accessible Bavaria) program is to support municipalities, and the state also intends to act within its own remit. A digital fund is to finance projects by municipalities and welfare organizations, and a yearly 60+ education voucher is to be redeemable at adult education centers, for example. Guides are to help seniors with applications, for instance at care support centers. For older people who do not speak German, consultation hours with interpreters and news subtitles in other languages are planned.

The SPD wants employees of church employers to be covered by the same labor law as everyone else, except in roles involving preaching and ministry. This is to include co-determination and collective bargaining.

Many people work for the churches. Special rules apply to them today. The SPD wants them to have the same rights as other workers. Exceptions should only apply to jobs like preaching.

Equal treatment is to be achieved in agreement with the federal government and explicitly include collective labor law. To accompany nationwide efforts, the SPD wants to hold talks with the Catholic dioceses and the Protestant regional church. The program also acknowledges the contribution of churches and religious and philosophical communities to social cohesion. The SPD wants to oppose discrimination based on religion or belief, religious extremism and antisemitism.