SPD on equality and diversity

The SPD wants to launch a state program for equality between women and men in the labor market. It points to a pay gap of almost 20 percent and to many women working part-time and in mini-jobs. In its view, equality also makes economic sense as a way to close the skilled-labor gap.

Women often earn less than men. Many women work part-time or in mini-jobs. The SPD wants to change that. It wants to start a program for equal chances at work. More women should also become managers.

A high-level, cross-departmental steering group at the Senate Chancellery is to plan and carry out the program; chambers, unions, and associations will be invited to take part. At the federal level, the SPD wants to push for a more effective pay equality law. Planned measures include an advisory service for companies, support for flexible working-time models, and gender-sensitive career counseling and support programs for girls and young women. In economic development funding, it will be examined how gender equality can become a decision criterion. In the public sector, steps toward more women in leadership are to be made binding in the state equality law, and regular monitoring is to show progress.

The SPD wants to fund projects that open a path into the general apprenticeship market for young people with disabilities. It notes that about 90 percent of the school leavers concerned currently end up working in sheltered workshops.

Many young people with disabilities later work in a special workshop. The SPD wants to open another path. They should be able to train at a regular company. The SPD wants to fund projects for this.

The basis is the Budget für Ausbildung (training budget), to which young people entitled to a workshop place have had a legal right since early 2020. Under it, companies are reimbursed for training pay and social insurance and for the costs of instruction and support. Funding for the projects would come from the compensatory levy managed by the Office for Pensions and Integration.

The SPD wants apartments to be allocated without discrimination. The state anti-discrimination office is also to handle suspected cases on the housing market and help those affected gather evidence.

No one should be treated unfairly when looking for a home. The SPD wants a contact point for this. People affected can turn to it. The office helps them collect evidence. The city's housing companies should be checked.

At the public housing companies, allocation practices are to be monitored and evaluated. The state anti-discrimination office is to advise people in Bremen who suspect unequal treatment on the housing market. Those affected are to get help with so-called testing, in which indications of discrimination are collected.

The SPD wants a balanced gender ratio among teaching staff. It plans to specifically reach out to men, especially men with an immigrant background, for jobs in schools and daycare centers.

Few men work in schools and daycare centers. The SPD wants more men in these jobs. It is thinking especially of men from immigrant families. It plans an ad campaign for this.

The SPD wants schools to convey a diverse, modern image of masculinity, lived out by enough male staff. An image campaign is planned to address this group directly. Local multipliers in the neighborhoods are to help; the platform gives mosques as an example.

The SPD wants to take action against racism, antisemitism, ableism and sexism in schools. To this end, information and prevention work is to be expanded.

The SPD wants no exclusion at schools. Nobody should be treated badly because of origin, religion, disability or gender. Schools should teach more about this. Teachers get training on it.

The platform groups these attitudes under the term group-focused enmity. It stresses that schools reflect the diversity of the population. Training for teachers, school social workers and others involved is to be a fixed part of the offerings at the Landesinstitut für Schule (state institute for schools).

The SPD wants to strengthen protection against discrimination through an active anti-discrimination policy. Racism, antisemitism and anti-Muslim hostility are to be fought at both the structural and the individual level.

Some people are treated worse because of where they come from or their religion. The SPD wants to protect them better. It wants to act against hatred of Jews and Muslims. It works with religious communities to do this.

The program names the state anti-discrimination office as a key player in raising awareness. Cooperation with religious communities, especially the Jewish community, is to continue. The SPD regards multilingualism as an opportunity. Differences of opinion should be settled democratically and respectfully, including online.

The SPD supports a diversity strategy for all administrations and companies in which Bremen holds a stake. More people with an immigration background should work there, including in leadership roles.

Few people from immigrant families work in public offices. The SPD wants to change that. More of them should work there. They should also be able to become managers. Staff in daycare centers and schools should get training on this.

The strategy is to apply to all public authorities and to companies partly owned by Bremen. The program explicitly mentions key and leadership positions. In addition, professionals in daycare centers, schools, and youth and social work are to get more training on transcultural issues.

The SPD wants to advance equal and self-determined participation for people with disabilities. The focus is on the broadest possible accessibility of buildings, digital services and information.

People with disabilities should be able to take part everywhere. The SPD wants to remove barriers. This applies to buildings and to the internet. Information should be understandable for everyone. People with disabilities should have a say.

The guiding principle is "Nothing about us without us" from the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The program cites the state action plan adopted in 2022, Bremen's disability equality act and the federal participation act as its mandate. Implementation is to happen together with self-advocacy organizations, the state disability commissioner, welfare associations and the administration. Accessibility is meant to benefit people with limited mobility, visual or hearing impairments, cognitive impairments and people with experience of psychiatric care.

The SPD wants the construction of accessible housing to take greater account of the needs of people with different kinds of disabilities. In addition, all counseling centers are to make their services inclusive.

The SPD wants more homes without barriers. The homes should suit different disabilities. Counseling centers should also work for everyone. That includes people with disabilities.

The platform sees a need for further effort in building wheelchair-accessible housing. Counseling in all counseling centers is to be inclusive. The SPD cites the counseling center for people with addictions as a model, saying it has become inclusive in recent years. That service is to be secured, and similar concepts are to be developed step by step in other counseling centers.

The SPD wants to ensure full participation for migrants and refugees with disabilities and to give special support to queer people with disabilities. The state anti-discrimination office is also to be open to people with disabilities.

Some people with disabilities face extra hardship. These include refugees and queer people. The SPD wants to give them special help. The state office against discrimination should also help people with disabilities.

The platform describes migrants and refugees with disabilities as additionally vulnerable groups. The reception system for refugees is to be developed further so that it takes their needs into account. Queer people with disabilities are to receive special support. People who are treated unfairly because of a disability should be able to turn to the state anti-discrimination office.

The SPD wants to identify and remove obstacles to real gender equality. It sees gender policy as a task that affects every area of government action.

Women, men and other genders should have equal chances. That is not yet true everywhere. The SPD wants to find and remove the obstacles. It wants to pay attention to this in every policy area.

The platform points to the COVID-19 pandemic, which it says exposed inequalities in care work, pay in female-dominated professions and working conditions. It calls domestic violence against women and girls a structural problem. For Bremen it cites a gender pay gap of 22 percent, compared with 18 percent nationwide. It also says the share of women among employees and in leadership positions is lower there than in other states.

The SPD wants to attract more women to technical and scientific occupations while also raising the standing of jobs mostly held by women. Career guidance in schools is to start early and avoid gender stereotypes.

The SPD wants more women in tech jobs. Schools should talk about careers early. They should not use clichés about women and men. Jobs done mostly by women should get more recognition.

The pilot project "Be oK" for grades 6 and 7 is to be made permanent and offered statewide. Technical and scientific degree programs and school subjects are also to be reviewed critically. Career counseling should work without role clichés and focus on jobs of the future. According to the program, women otherwise risk falling further behind in the labor market.

The SPD wants to implement Bremen's state strategy for gender equity in working life and equal pay during the coming term. Business development funding is to be made gender-equitable, with the "gender traffic light" serving as the first step toward comprehensive gender budgeting.

Bremen has a plan for equal chances for women at work. The SPD wants to carry out this plan. Public money for businesses should also help women. The state should check this when it hands out money. This is called gender budgeting.

The strategy covers unequal pay, training, promotion opportunities and balancing family and work; binding monitoring has been agreed. Through the EU-funded ERDF program "Gender Diversity in KMU" (small and medium-sized firms), companies are to receive support to attract women to innovative and male-dominated sectors. The focus is on women with completed vocational training and on paths to qualify further as specialists. The program argues that gender-equitable funding is needed because much future money will go to digitalization and the green transition.

The SPD wants to fully implement the Istanbul Convention in Bremen and strengthen the protection system for women and girls affected by violence. This includes better funding for women's shelters, a legal right to free admission, and measures against femicide.

The SPD wants to protect women and girls better from violence. Women's shelters should get more money. Every woman in need should get a free place. There should be a help center open day and night. Killings of women should be prosecuted better.

The state action plan to protect women and children from violence is to be fully carried out and funded, and more so-called family spaces are to be created. The SPD wants to improve base funding for shelters, examine regular funding, set up a 24-hour emergency contact point, and give those leaving a shelter priority access to housing. It also plans more accessible shelters for women with disabilities, more counseling on online violence, and easier access to therapies such as art therapy, with health insurers asked to help pay. Against femicide, the SPD is examining specialized prosecution offices and wants risk assessments after violent incidents.

The SPD wants to protect LGBTQIA+ people in Bremen more strongly against hate and violence and to fund services for them. Plans include queer youth programs, new meeting places, more contact officers in the police and education sector, and an updated state action plan.

The SPD wants to protect queer people better. Queer people include lesbian, gay and trans people. There should be more meeting places and youth groups. The police should have more contact persons for queer people. Older queer people should also be able to live well.

Queer youth groups are to be funded as safe spaces and supplemented by digital services. For older LGBTQIA+ people, the SPD wants to secure participation in bodies such as the seniors' council, suitable housing, and care free from discrimination. Diversity management in the workplace is to be strengthened, and any "sexuality pay gap" identified and eliminated. Queer symbols and art in public spaces and remembrance of the persecution of homosexuals, including under National Socialism, are to be promoted. The contact positions at the Bremen police and in education are to be raised to full-time, and the 2014 state action plan on homophobia reviewed and updated.

The SPD supports several federal government plans on queer rights. These include a self-determination law to replace the Transsexuals Act, a new law of parentage, and a ban on discrimination based on sexual identity in the Basic Law.

The SPD supports national plans for queer people. The old Transsexuals Act should go. A self-determination law should replace it. Same-sex married couples should have equal rights, also in adoption. The constitution should ban discrimination based on sexual identity.

According to the program, the self-determination law is meant to shield trans people from harassment and make a self-determined life easier. On the law of parentage, the SPD shares the goal of modernization. Same-sex spouses are to receive the same rights, especially in adoptions. The equal treatment article of the constitution is to be expanded to include sexual identity.

The SPD wants health care and nursing to take greater account of differences by gender and background. To that end, training is to be adapted, gender medicine considered, and women included more in research.

Women and men get sick in different ways. A person's background also matters. The SPD wants doctors and care workers to learn this. Research should pay more attention to women. Schools and colleges should offer free period products.

Culturally sensitive and gender-sensitive content is to become mandatory in health and social training programs and degree courses. The SPD wants to examine whether a gender medicine specialty can be set up in Bremen and whether research on the gender data gap can be funded. Through the Bundesrat, it wants to ensure women are included in clinical trials. Counseling and treatment services are also to take different gender identities into account. Free menstrual products and multilingual information are planned for schools, vocational schools and universities. Services for women with mental illness, addiction or postnatal depression are also planned.

The SPD wants to examine women's advisory councils on the Berlin model and launch them as pilot projects in selected districts. Women are to take part on equal terms in district councils and citizen participation and receive extra support for this. The Landesfrauenrat (state women's council) is to receive permanent institutional funding.

The SPD wants to test women's councils in some districts. Women should have an equal say in local politics. There should be support for this, such as child care in the evening. The state women's council should get permanent funding.

The plans include a mentoring and networking program for women in district council work, targeted training, coaching and supervision, and child care in the evening hours. Women are also to be trained and supported in dealing with digital violence and cyberbullying. The Bremen Landesfrauenrat is to receive separate project funding for these offers. Beyond that, the SPD advocates institutional funding for the Landesfrauenrat so that its office can operate permanently. The platform describes it as an umbrella organization of 38 associations and clubs.