Alliance for the future
Speeches
"Innovation for new fields of employment"
as part of the conference:
"Alliance for Future and Work"
on 02.07.1997 in Halle (S.)
Ladies and gentlemen, dear Colleagues and Friends,
first of all, I would like to thank you for inviting me to the "Alliance for the Future and Work" conference.
The topic: "Innovation for new fields of employment" is an exciting and very complex subject.
As district chairman of the DPG, I would like to give a brief presentation on what I consider to be important points of labor market development in connection with developments in information and communication technology that are underexposed in the public debate.
There are many misunderstandings about the path currently being taken towards multimedia and the information society, particularly from a labor market perspective.
On closer inspection, the promises of the growth sector of information and communication technologies, which are supposed to reach the status of today's automotive industry, hardly refer to the socially necessary job growth, but only to the expected turnover figures.
However, as will be shown below, the current developments do not only raise quantitative but also qualitative questions with regard to jobs.
In the short time available, I would like to address what I consider to be two important issues.
The first is the question of what formative trends are currently emerging and the second is what levels of trade union action for innovation in new fields of employment result from this.
With regard to the first question, it should be noted that since the beginning of the 1980s the telecommunications sector, which has traditionally been organized by the state, has come under considerable pressure to privatize and deregulate.
The pioneers of this development were the USA and Great Britain, which pushed ahead with privatization and deregulation as early as the beginning of the 1980s.
In Germany, this step was completed with Postreform II in 1995 by converting the DBP companies into stock corporations.
Interested observers will probably still remember the fierce disputes surrounding privatization in the Federal Republic.
All the problems pointed out by the German Postal Workers' Union at the time proved to be true within a very short time.
With the imminent and agreed market liberalization resulting from the fall of the telephone and network monopoly, formerly protected sectors are now facing competition on the global market.
Companies such as Britisch Telekom, AT & T and other "global players" are waiting in the wings to compete.
This competition will have a correspondingly negative impact on the number and quality of existing jobs in the sector.
However, the pressure on jobs in the sector is not only caused by the desired competition but also, and this should not be underestimated, by the rationalization potential of information and communication technologies.
The space-destroying effect will not only be felt by users but also by the providers of these technologies.
Deutsche Telekom AG has stated that it intends to reduce its workforce by 60,000 to 80,000 people in the medium term.
In contrast, the increase in jobs at competitors is rather modest.
For example, the largest provider, Mannesmann Mobilfunk, currently employs between 6,000 and 7,000 people.
According to official announcements, the nationwide network provider CeBaCon will employ around 8,000 people in the final expansion phase.
Even the opportunities inherent in the new technologies to create jobs in structurally weak regions have not yet been exploited.
For example, Lothar Spät had already pointed out such options in the form of "satellite offices" in his book "Der Weg in die Informationsgesellschaft" in the mid-1980s.
Today, after more than 10 years, there are no significant jobs in this area as far as we know.
The retreat from the area continues unabated.
For example, the example of Deutsche Telekom AG, a high-tech company, in Saxony-Anhalt clearly illustrates how the concentration on conurbations is increasing.
For example, the Telekom Magdeburg directorate with almost 200 employees was dissolved.
With the exception of DeTeCSM, Telekom has no subsidiaries in Saxony-Anhalt.
The most recent example is the reorganization of the subsidiary DeTeCSM, which served as a nationwide model for Deutsche Telekom AG's information processing after its extremely successful start.
As of January 1, 1998, DeTeCSM will no longer be called Computer Service Magdeburg, but Computer Service Management, and its headquarters will be moved from Magdeburg to Darmstadt.
We consider this to be a scandal in terms of structural policy.
As in all areas, the information and communication technology sector is also undergoing operational reorganization.
In addition to the pressure to rationalize and increased competition, employees are increasingly exposed to new management strategies.
These new management strategies are massively shaking up the previous social and payment standards of employees.
Outsourcing, as it is known today, means that employees are losing the rights they have previously acquired under collective agreements.
Companies are trying to establish new payment systems based on performance and sales, which may lead to a drastic reduction in wages and salaries in structurally weak areas where sales and turnover are more difficult, and thus even to a massive breach of collective agreements.
Jobs previously located in the core of the company are being pushed out of the company by artificial interfaces in the sense of lean service production.
The undisputedly newly created jobs are in most cases comparable to the jobs lost in the old companies in terms of work content.
However, the old collective agreement standards can only be maintained to a limited extent when subsidiaries are formed and outsourced.
Completely new jobs created in the field of information and communication technology-related services are very often in the area of unsecured employment without social security.
This applies, for example, to the call centers that are springing up everywhere and the operator services that are currently being set up, such as private comfort information services.
The same often applies to employees in the so-called new services.
According to initial trends, outsourcing in the service and logistics sector leads to so-called "bogus self-employment".
This applies to service technicians, troubleshooters and jobs in logistics.
The consequences for those affected and for the social security system need not be described in detail here.
As a consequence, we are moving towards an employment model familiar from the USA which, in our view, must not be socially desirable under any circumstances.
Against the background of these briefly outlined trends, the question arises as to what trade union action is actually possible to increase employment in the supposed growth sector.
Trade union action is required in order to achieve real progress and meaningful development of the fields of employment. Otherwise, the employment potential of the new information and communication technologies can hardly be exploited and the negative effects identified can hardly be limited.
As trade unions, we have three basic levels of action at our disposal to work towards opening up the new fields of employment.
These are firstly the political level of action, secondly the collective bargaining level of action and thirdly the level of action mediated through the works councils of co-determination in companies.
In our first level of action, we are dealing with the current regulatory and deregulation policy.
As you can imagine given the current political constellation, this is a very difficult area. But here, too, we are trying to put forward our position through constant contact and influence and to point out the consequences of their liberalization policy to the decision-makers.
As regulatory policy is increasingly being implemented at European level, international cooperation is urgently required in order to exert influence successfully.
We as the German Postal Workers' Union are striving for close cooperation with other trade unions worldwide within the International Union of Postal and Telegraph Workers. Furthermore, as a postal union we have a full-time European office in Brussels.
As DPG, we endeavor to make it clear to those responsible in Saxony-Anhalt's state politics which regional developments and which location issues or dangers are influenced by regulatory policy.
The federal states are directly involved in the political decision-making process via the Regulatory Council. Here we would like to see much greater involvement on the part of our state government.
The most direct level of action for trade unions is, of course, the collective bargaining level.
As a postal workers' union, we try to influence the trends described above through collective bargaining and thus in a way that is enforceable for individual employees.
The most important goal is to limit job cuts and to force companies to be more innovative in terms of employment by excluding redundancies for operational reasons in collective agreements.
We have currently agreed this exclusion of compulsory redundancies for our organizational area until the end of 1997.
As an organization, we are determined to extend contracts of this kind considerably further.
In our view, this type of contract structure forces companies to consider employment opportunities within the companies.
In order to make outsourcing as socially acceptable as possible and to limit it contractually wherever possible, we have concluded standard transitional collective agreements for almost all subsidiaries to safeguard the material and mandatory rights of employees.
With the collective agreement for the restructuring of the freight service, we have succeeded in limiting outsourcing.
Another point that I did not go into further in the analysis of trends is the retraining and further qualification of employees affected by reorganization and rationalization.
Here, too, we have opened up binding qualification opportunities for employees through our rationalization protection collective agreements.
A further step in our collective agreement on the Alliance for Jobs is the attempt to limit overtime work or to ensure that it is carried out in free time.
Furthermore, as the DPG, we have succeeded in securing previously unregulated employment relationships in a collective agreement on alternating telework.
For the first time, teleworkers are covered by a collective agreement which regulates certain company attendance times as well as liability issues.
The level of co-determination at company level, mediated by the works councils, only offers the possibility of contributing to an increase in acceptance of the services by extending and flexibly utilizing working hours for employees and customers.
As you can see, we are making an effort to shape the trends outlined above.
We do this not only because we want to perform a protective function for our organized colleagues, but also to increase the acceptance of new fields of employment and services.
I am convinced that the population will only accept these services as customers if the new services also offer jobs with prospects.
Nevertheless, given the current framework conditions and the developments that are already becoming apparent, we will not be able to avoid redistributing the work available in our society in the future.
In concrete terms, this means that in addition to options such as annual working time models, sabbaticals, etc., a reduction in weekly working hours is urgently needed, as the expected employment miracles will not materialize without appropriate support.
With this in mind, I look forward to an exciting discussion and thank you for your attention.