SSW on work and social affairs

The SSW wants to revive the Tariftreuegesetz (law tying public contracts to collectively agreed wages), which was repealed in 2019. Public contracts should again be linked to fair pay, good working conditions and sustainability.

The state hands out contracts to companies. In the past, these companies had to pay fair wages. This law was dropped in 2019. The SSW wants to bring it back. It should also apply to towns and cities.

According to the platform, the earlier law was initiated by the SSW and was scrapped in 2019 by the CDU-Green-FDP coalition, which the party calls a mistake. The new version is meant to protect against wage dumping and make fair working conditions and sustainability criteria for awarding contracts. The rules should also be binding on municipalities.

The SSW wants to improve the labor market across the German-Danish border: gaps in social law for commuters are to be closed, advice services expanded and vocational qualifications mutually recognized. A joint economic development strategy for the border region is to be added.

Many people work on the other side of the border. The SSW wants to make that easier. They should get more advice. Gaps in social insurance should be closed. Job training certificates should count in both countries.

Problems between the social insurance systems are to be identified, and administration at state and federal level is to be digitized. The Infocenter Grenze in Padborg is to get support, its one-on-one advice is to grow for the Jutland and Fehmarnbelt regions, and new commuters are to be offered an all-in-one package. Besides municipal money, state project funds may be used. Together with Danish authorities and local municipalities, the SSW wants a joint regional economic strategy and cross-border regional planning with consultation procedures. This is meant to help with the shortage of skilled workers, among other things.

The SSW calls for a minimum wage of 13 euros per hour that is enough to live on and protects against poverty. Exemptions for certain groups are to be removed.

The SSW wants a higher minimum wage. It should be 13 euros per hour. It should apply to everyone. There should be no more exceptions.

The program wants protection against poverty written into the Minimum Wage Act as a stated goal. Exemptions for the long-term unemployed, school students, young people, and people with disabilities are to end. The SSW argues that the work of these groups is not worth less. As background, the program says that more than half of the unemployed and over 40 percent of single parents in Schleswig-Holstein are at risk of poverty.

The SSW wants a law that allows temporary agency work and contracts for work (Werkverträge) only in exceptional cases and prevents abuse. Mini-jobs are to be reduced where they displace regular jobs or where conditions are unacceptable.

The SSW wants to strongly limit temp work and outsourcing contracts. They should only be allowed as an exception. There should also be fewer mini-jobs. Instead there should be more regular jobs with social insurance.

The program puts special weight on minimum standards for pay and working conditions in meat production. Housing that employers provide for workers must be decent and protect against infection. Marginal employment is to shrink where it prevents or replaces jobs with full social insurance coverage.

The SSW wants Schleswig-Holstein to set up a pilot project on an unconditional basic income. The aim is to examine whether it could answer future challenges in social and labor market policy.

The SSW wants to test a basic income. That is money from the state for everyone, with no conditions. The state should start a trial. The SSW wants to see if the idea helps.

The state government would run the trial. The program describes a basic income as a possible solution to the major social and labor market tasks of the coming decades. The trial is meant to examine that possibility.

The SSW wants to expand help for people with addictions, homeless people, and people with mental illness according to need, and to prevent cuts at their expense after the pandemic. The Finnish "Housing First" approach is to be used against homelessness.

The SSW wants more help for people in need. This includes people without a home or with an addiction. People with mental illness should also get more help. The state should not cut spending here.

Preventive social work is to receive more funding, and self-help groups are to get more reliable money through higher state grants. Debt counseling is to be adequately funded by the state and municipalities. For psychotherapy, the program calls for more treatment places, especially for children and young people. Loneliness and isolation are to be monitored continuously, feeding into social reporting and serving as a basis for free, easy-to-reach projects.

The SSW wants the federal government, the Federal Employment Agency, and the state to focus more on active labor market policy and give jobless people individual advice. The program argues that work secures participation and self-determination.

The SSW wants better help for people without work. Everyone should get personal advice. There should be fitting courses and retraining. Young people should also get help starting a job.

Further training and retraining are to fit low-skilled workers and technological change better, and the state's Landesprogramm Arbeit is to be evaluated against that goal on an ongoing basis. Child care and flexible working hours are meant to ease access to work for single parents. The "Frau und Beruf" advice network, production schools, training mentors, youth employment agencies, and Jugendaufbauwerke (youth training centers) are to be secured long term. Municipalities are to play a bigger part in job placement because they know local conditions.

The SSW wants to strictly enforce the duty of companies to employ people with disabilities and to raise the compensatory levy. The state, as an employer, is to hire more people with severe disabilities.

The SSW wants more jobs for people with disabilities. Companies must hire such people. Those that do not should pay more. The state itself should hire more people with disabilities.

The compensatory levy is paid by companies that do not meet their employment quota, or meet it only in part. In state service, flexible working time models such as part-time or sabbaticals, special protection against dismissal, and accompanying support are to apply. Employees are to get an individual legal right under Social Code Book IX to workplace reintegration management (BEM). People with high support needs are to receive benefits for participation in working life, including in vocational training and not only in sheltered workshops.

The SSW wants to raise Kindergeld (child benefit) and adjust it to the rising cost of basic needs. It also wants the benefit to no longer be deducted from Hartz IV welfare payments.

The SSW wants higher child benefit. It should rise along with prices for everyday needs. Families on Hartz IV welfare should keep the child benefit on top. Today it is deducted from their payments.

The increase is to follow price rises for basic living costs. At present, child benefit counts as income for Hartz IV recipients and reduces their payments. That offset is to be ended.

The SSW wants collective bargaining agreements to apply everywhere and employees to have more say, especially when new technologies are introduced. It also calls for a right to continuing education, a right to return from part-time to full-time work, and legal rules for new forms of work.

The SSW wants union wage agreements to cover all workers. These agreements set pay and hours for many companies. Workers should have more say at work. Everyone should have a right to further training. Part-time workers should be able to go back to full-time.

New co-determination rights are to be set in law for issues such as climate protection, digitalization, artificial intelligence and internationalization, and are to include impact assessments when new processes are introduced. Incentives are to encourage joining employer associations and unions. State business funding is to take "good work" criteria into account in the future. The state is to fund training for people whose jobs are threatened by digitalization, and the Aufstiegs-BAföG (advancement training aid) is to be developed further. For new models of working hours and locations, the SSW wants a legal framework that protects against overload while leaving room for individual arrangements.

The SSW names a solidarity-based welfare state on the Scandinavian model as its guiding vision, in which those with greater means contribute more. For the party, this includes good education for all children, good working conditions and support for all regions.

The SSW wants a strong welfare state like in Scandinavia. People who have more should give more. Weaker people should get help. All children should get a good education. All regions of the state should get support.

The platform describes fairness as access for all children to the best possible education and care, along with good living and working conditions for adults. Policy is to consider all parts of the state and promote regional economies. As the party of the Danish minority and the Frisian ethnic group, the SSW stands for coexistence among Germans, Danes, Frisians, Sinti and Roma, and immigrants. It describes climate protection as a core concern for preserving the basis of life in the state.