IG Metall chairwoman Christiane Benner called the package a “result like a mixed bag of sweets and sour things.” She criticized the planned expansion of causeless fixed-term contracts and the weakening of dismissal protection as an “attack on workers’ rights.” Verdi chief Frank Werneke also regretted that the coalition had refrained from higher taxation of large assets and inheritances.
The Left party chairs Ines Schwerdtner and Luigi Pantisano, along with parliamentary group leaders Heidi Reichinnek and Sören Pellmann, spoke in a joint statement of a course of “social state slash-and-burn and mistrust.” Green Party finance politician Katharina Beck called it a sham package. The Federation of German Industries (BDI) misses a “powerful growth impulse” and demands further reforms. Employers’ President Rainer Dulger, on the other hand, attested to the coalition an “overdue policy shift” toward growth and employment.
The German Union Federation (DGB) drew a mixed conclusion: Yasmin Fahimi welcomed the strengthening of small and middle incomes but criticized the abolition of the telephone sick note.
Source: Tagesschau
