German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) leader Yasmin Fahimi has sharply criticized Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil's (SPD) statements on pension and working time policies. Klingbeil's assertion that Germany must "stop promoting early exit from working life" is "false," Fahimi told the "Tagesspiegel" (Tuesday edition). The DGB chief also rejected Klingbeil's call to provide stronger incentives for longer working hours.
Those who want to work longer can already do so, Fahimi said. However, many simply lack the opportunity. "Workers over 55 who are unemployed also rarely find a good job anymore," she stated. The increased employment rate is not a success of the retirement age of 67, but rather of improved labor market policies.
Fahimi also dismissed Klingbeil's recent statement that society as a whole must work more. She denied that Klingbeil was right about this. "Germany does not have a problem with work volume; fundamentally, enough work is being done here," she said. "Or what is the industrial worker who is currently on short-time work supposed to think of such statements? Or the 120,000 people who lost their jobs in industry in 2025?"
In full-time jobs, people in Germany work "no less than in other European countries," Fahimi said. Germany has a disproportionately high part-time rate, but this is "a reason for joy, not complaint," because it has significantly increased the female employment rate.
The DGB chief rejected CSU leader Markus Söder's proposal for one additional hour of work per week. "These are technocratic number games that miss reality," she said. Söder is not responsible for the agreement on weekly working hours. "This political meddling in collective bargaining negotiations is an attempt to undermine the distribution compromises that take place within them," Fahimi said. "I will not tolerate that."
Fahimi also responded critically to Klingbeil's concern that the SPD is perceived too much as a party of transfer payment recipients. The SPD must take this feedback "very seriously," she said, and follow a clear course of social justice more strongly again, instead of getting lost in "small-scale compromises." "The SPD's profile is apparently too unclear," said the former SPD general secretary.
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