In the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, the new head of the German Federation of Trade Unions, Yasmin Fahimi, warns against dismantling industry in order to achieve climate goals. According to Fahimi, the green transformation of the economy must first and foremost create employment and not dismantle it as is now threatened. Fahimi speaks of economic suicide in the current climate protection and energy policy.
Fahimi warns of consequences of wrong decisions on climate protection
The DGB leader points to far-reaching mistakes in the climate-friendly restructuring of the German economy. “It would be a blatant mistake to forego industrial production in Germany just to make our own climate balance sheet look good,” she says in the interview. Fahimi primarily sees energy-intensive sectors such as the steel industry, the chemical industry and the production of aluminium and copper as potentially at risk of losing many jobs. But the entire food industry is already at risk. With the path now taken, many companies would relocate abroad.
Image: SPD Schleswig-Holstein, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In the path it has now taken, Germany will become an importing country.
Fahimi emphasises. “To do without all this and to transform ourselves from an exporting country to an importing country would be economic suicide. We cannot shrink ourselves to ecological health by means of industrial deconstruction. We expect qualitative growth and job creation from the transformation.
Fahimi proposes transformation fund
Fahimi advocates setting up transformation funds with the aim of mobilising money from private investors in addition to state investments and subsidies. “We have to mobilise the enormous private assets in Germany for the transformation according to the motto: good conscience, good profits,” she said in this regard. To this end, she suggested that the state could issue government bonds, for example, with the criteria of climate neutrality and good employment in collectively agreed and co-determined companies.
First criticism of the government’s climate protection policy
So far, the trade unions have agreed almost unconditionally with the government’s chosen path in climate protection policy. Politicians have repeatedly promised that the energy transition would create more jobs than it would destroy. Obviously, even the trade unionists are now realising that this is more wishful thinking than reality. With Fahimi’s criticism, resistance now seems to be forming among the trade unions for the first time. So far, the trade unions have largely supported the path taken in climate protection and energy policy.
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