In April 2001, the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) presented a new programme arguing for the introduction of a federal immigration committee and quotas for certain types of non-EU immigrant workers. This programme comes at a time when the federal government as well as the Confederation of German Industries (BDI) have highlighted the need for future large-scale immigration and are seeking to find ways to attract high-skilled foreign labour to Germany. The debate focuses not just on rules to govern immigration but also seeks to offer foreign workers support for their integration into German society.
On 24 April 2001, the German Trade Union Federation (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB) issued a press statement setting out its policy regarding the immigration of workers. This initiative comes at a time when issues of migration and the development of the German labour force are being hotly debated by almost all political parties, as well as by employers' organisations. This debate has been inspired by projections of Germany's demographic development: according to estimates by the United Nations, Germany's population will shrink from its present 82 million to between 57 million and 62 million in 2050. In addition to these long-term problems, business representatives are especially troubled by recent labour shortages which have particularly hit the high-technology sectors of the German economy.
Background
In 2001, at CeBIT, the world's largest information technology (IT) trade fair, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder responded to complaints from the German computer and software industry about the lack of high-qualified employees by announcing the introduction of a limited number of work permits for IT workers from outside the European Union. With these "green cards", the federal government sought to bring up to 10,000 highly-skilled computer experts into the country, thus providing some relief from the significant labour shortage within the IT industry (DE0003252F).
While the success of the green card programme can at best be seen as modest - it attracted only 2,970 migrant computer experts during the first 100 days after its introduction - the coalition government of the Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, SPD) and Alliance 90/The Greens (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) decided to take a more comprehensive approach. Partly driven by vocal criticism among the ranks of the Christian Democratic Party (Christlich Demokratische Union, CDU)/Christian Social Union (Christlich Soziale Union, CSU) opposition in parliament, the government decided to set up a special commission (Zuwanderungskommission) to suggest new policies in the field of immigration. Composed of migration experts from the federal parliament (Bundestag), state parliaments, municipal governments, churches, trade unions, employers' associations, universities and government agencies (the participants are listed in the annex at the end of this article) the special commission was charged with recommending a new immigration policy. Among other points, the special commission was asked to:
- suggest legislative, administrative, organisational or other measures to guide and place limits on immigration;
- identify criteria and general rules for quantifying the need for immigration;
- suggest ways of streamlining the acceptance procedure for granting political asylum;
- evaluate rules for the immigration of people with ethnic German backgrounds from eastern European countries (Spätaussiedler);
- find new ways to integrate immigrants better;
- relate German immigration policies to the future common EU system of political asylum and EU migration policy;
- examine other countries' migration policies with the goal of copying the best practices; and
- evaluate existing procedures for the granting of visas, residence status, and work permits
While the commission's final report is not due to be published before summer 2001, several organisations, some of them participating in the commission's proceedings, have released their own programmes on immigration in advance. Most notably, the Confederation of German Industries (Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie, BDI) and DGB have recently published their own immigration programmes.
BDI demands for new immigration policy
On 1 March 2001, BDI released a position paper which describes a more systematic immigration policy as being one pillar of a comprehensive strategy intended to offset the negative impact of demographic developments in German society. As well as leading to a future massive shortage of skilled labour, BDI is also concerned that the ageing of the German population will have a negative impact on the welfare state. In addition to measures such as increasing training activities, improving services for families and raising the retirement age, BDI believes that a revised immigration policy will provide a viable solution. To provide fast relief, BDI suggests extending the green card model beyond the IT sector and applying it to all occupations with significant labour shortage.
In the long run, BDI proposes copying the immigration programmes of Canada and Australia, which set annual quotas for certain categories of immigrants. Applicants for immigration should be evaluated on a points scale which recognises criteria such as training and education, job experience, age, marital status, and prospects for successful integration into German society. Such a programme, however, is not considered to be sufficient to attract large numbers of qualified immigrants, because their number is limited and other developed countries such as the USA, Japan, the UK and France are also seeking to extend their labour forces by way of immigration. As a way of making Germany more appealing to migrants and more competitive in global labour markets, BDI calls for an improvement in the integration of immigrants and for Germany to become more hospitable for foreigners (DE0008277F).
DGB's new perspectives for immigration and integration
Like the industrial employers, the German Trade Union Federation strongly argues for a revision of the country's immigration policy. According to Heinz Putzhammer, a member of DGB's executive board, Germany should design consistent immigration policies instead of just seeking to prohibit immigration all together. At his presentation of DGB's immigration programme on 24 April 2001 Mr Putzhammer referred to the positive examples of Canada and New Zealand and suggested setting up a permanent immigration commission, comprised of representatives from government, trade unions and employers' associations. It would be the commission's responsibility to define quotas for immigration as well as to develop a points system to define eligibility for immigration. According to preliminary estimates by DGB, quotas should be within the range of 75,000 to 100,000 immigrants per year up until 2010, and should be extended thereafter. Mr Putzhammer further emphasised that these numbers should not include refugees and applicants for political asylum, or immigrants' family members. As with BDI, DGB does not want to touch the individual guarantee of the right to political asylum, as provided for by chapter 16 of the German constitution. In contrast to the industry employers, however, DGB seeks to limit temporary migration such as that encouraged by the green card programme, on the ground that it negatively affects the employment perspectives of domestic workers.
According to the DGB paper, all types of immigrants should be eligible for extensive support in order to foster integration. Such integration measures should include individual advice and counselling, language classes and help with integration at the workplace. In general, the costs for this integration programme should be covered by the federal government, the federal states and municipal authorities, but DGB also expects employers to pay. Companies should consider giving immigrants paid time off to enable them to participate in integration classes, and paying for work-related language training.
Commentary
Even before Chancellor Schröder's commission has had a chance to publish the results of its work, there are strong signs that trade unions and employers will be able to find some common ground over a revised immigration policy. Despite several differences on the issues of temporary immigration and the distribution of costs, it is notable how close the BDI and DGB programmes are. One reason for this resemblance might be that both programmes are strongly inspired by a "best practice" model which makes reference to the Canadian example. However, there might be a second reason which is related to Germany's history. In the 1960s, when the German government pursued large-scale labour migration by way of negotiating separate agreements with countries such as Spain, Italy and Turkey, it originally intended only to hire temporary workers, and not to gain new permanent residents. So-called "guest workers" (Gastarbeiter) were intended to leave after the German labour supply had recovered. In most cases, however, this never happened and, because most of social actors in Germany were not prepared to pursue active integration, several so-called "parallel societies" emerged. With their new focus on active integration, both trade unions and industry seem to acknowledge the mistakes in Germany's recent past and, it is to be hoped, will offer migrant workers more than just a job. (Martin Behrens, Institute for Economic and Social Research, WSI)
Annex: Members of the special government commission on immigration
- Rita Süßmuth (commission president), member of the Bundestag, former president of parliament.
- Hans Jochen Vogel (commission vice-president), former Minister of Justice.
- Cornelia Schmalz-Jacobsen, former Federal Commissioner for Foreign People (Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Ausländerfragen).
- Jürgen Schmude, former Minister of Justice and head of the Assembly of the German Protestant Church (Synode der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland, EKD).
- Horst Eylmann, former head of parliamentary Committee for Legal Affairs.
- Kay Hailbronner, professor of public and European law at the University of Konstanz.
- Hans-Jürgen Hoffmann, mayor of the city of Saarbrücken and president of the German Association of Cities and Towns (Deutscher Städtetag).
- Gerd Landsberg, general director of the Federation of German Cities and Towns (Deutscher Städte und Gemeindebund).
- Frank Niethammer, vice-president of the German Association of Chambers of Commerce (Deutscher Industrie- und Handelstag).
- Hans-Olaf Henkel, former president of the Confederation of German Industries (Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Industrie, BDI).
- Christoph Kannegießer, head of the labour market department at the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (Bundesvereinigung der Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbände, BDA).
- Roland Issen, former head of the German White-Collar Workers' Union (Deutsche Angestelltengewerkschaft, DAG).
- Heinz Putzhammer, member of the executive board of the German Trade Union Federation (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB).
- Josef Voß, bishop and head of the migration commission of the Conference of German Bishops (Deutsche Bischofskonferenz).
- Paul Spiegel, president of the Central Committee of the Jewish People in Germany (Zentralrat der Juden in Deutschland).
- Karl Ludwig Kohlwage, bishop and president of the Northelbian district of the Lutheran Church (Nordelbische Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche).
- Roland Schilling, deputy head of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNHCR) in Germany.
- Herbert Schnoor, former secretary for interior affairs in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
- Ralf Fücks, member of the executive board of the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation.
- Rainer Münz, professor of population science at the Humboldt-University Berlin.
- Vural Öger, entrepreneur.