Klaus Ernst

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Klaus Ernst (2018)

Klaus Friedrich Ernst (born November 1, 1954 in Munich ) is a German politician ( Die Linke ) and former trade union official . He has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2005 .

Ernst was a co-founder and executive board member of WASG . In the party The Left , he was from 2007 to 2010 and Vice Chairman from 15 May 2010 to 2 June 2012 Chairman . Until her resignation on April 10, 2012, he shared the federal chairmanship with Gesine Lötzsch .

Training and union work

Ernst left home in 1969 and dropped out of secondary school. In 1970 he began training as an electrical mechanic at the Munich electronics group Rohde & Schwarz , passed the skilled worker examination in 1974 and was elected youth representative and works council. In 1972 he became a member of IG Metall (IGM). Ernst went through the IG Metall training courses that were shaped by teachers like Hans Preiss .

In the union he took over the chairmanship of the Munich local youth committee (1974-1979) and the DGB youth (1972-1975). The 1979 study of recorded Economics and Social Sciences at the union- Hamburg University of Economics and Politics he concluded (HWP) in 1984 as a graduate in economics and graduate social economist from. During his studies he was mainly influenced by Herbert Schui , who "quickly became a good friend" for him.

In 1984 Ernst went to Stuttgart to help out on a seven-week metal workers' strike. Half a year later he became union secretary (until 1995), responsible for organization, educational work and social plans. In 1995 Ernst was elected IG Metall representative in Schweinfurt .

As an employee representative , he became a member of the supervisory boards of various Stuttgart and Schweinfurt metal companies (including Porsche , most recently SKF and ZF Sachs ).

As a trade unionist, he expressed strong criticism of reform plans by the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder , such as the Riester pension and Agenda 2010 .

politics

Klaus Ernst, 2020 in the German Bundestag

Ernst had been a member of the SPD since 1974 . On March 12, 2004, he and six friends sent an e-mail call for the establishment of the Labor and Social Justice Initiative . The platform pleaded for a political alliance that should become a "social alternative" for the 2006 federal election. In the first week there were 300 signatories, six weeks after publication there were 2,200. In the summer of 2004, Ernst was expelled from the SPD at the request of the party executive .

The Work and Social Justice initiative soon merged with the alternative election that arose in northern Germany and was critical of Christian globalization . Initially, Ernst was a member of the executive board of WAsG e. V. , from January 2005 he was a member of the executive board of the resulting party Work & Social Justice - Die Wahlalternative (WASG). In the run-up to the 2005 Bundestag elections , Ernst had generally welcomed their collaboration with the PDS and the former SPD chairman Oskar Lafontaine in a joint left-wing alliance, but rejected the WASG joining the PDS or co-running WASG candidates on open PDS electoral lists . After the informal electoral alliance of WASG and PDS, which he initially favored, based on the model of the Italian L'Ulivo, turned out to be unworkable under German electoral law and a newly founded pure electoral party from WASG and PDS would not have been able to act, Ernst accepted the model of the open lists of the PDS which renamed itself Linkspartei.PDS to compensate. On July 23, 2005, he himself was elected in the first ballot with 61% of the votes at number 1 on their Bavarian state list. He also ran as a direct candidate in the constituency of Schweinfurt . There he and the Left Party achieved their best Bavarian first and second vote result (6.4% and 5.3%, respectively). Ernst entered the 16th German Bundestag via the state list . In addition to his mandate in the Bundestag, he continued his job as IG Metall representative on a part-time basis, which he had previously announced. From 2005 to 2010 Ernst was deputy chairman of the left parliamentary group .

At the party congress in June 2007 , the WASG merged with the Linkspartei.PDS to form Die Linke . There Ernst was elected its deputy chairman.

Addressing the German Communist Party , he said in 2008: "The DKP is a sect for me and I can only recommend it to dissolve".

In the 2009 Bundestag election , Ernst returned to first place on the Bavarian state list of his party. In his home constituency of Schweinfurt, he achieved the best first vote result of the Bavarian left with 10.4%. In the 17th German Bundestag, Ernst was a deputy member of the Joint Committee and the Committee on Labor and Social Affairs .

Klaus Ernst in the 2013 federal election campaign

After Lothar Bisky and Oskar Lafontaine, the previous dual leadership of the party, had withdrawn, Ernst was elected on May 15, 2010 together with Gesine Lötzsch as one of the party leaders with equal rights. Due to the new function, he gave up his part-time position at IG-Metall and also resigned from the supervisory board. The party placed him in January 2013 as one of the eight top candidates for the 2013 Bundestag election and he was elected as in the 2017 Bundestag election.

In the 19th German Bundestag , Klaus Ernst is chairman of the Committee for Economic Affairs and Energy. He is also represented as a deputy member of the Labor and Social Committee.

Controversy

His penchant for sharp-tongued formulations often brought him noticeable headwinds in internal party conflicts.

In 2010, the fact that Ernst received a donation of 3,500 euros for the position of federal chairman from his party in addition to his salary as a member of parliament and parliamentary group member (around 7,700 euros) ensured internal party discussions with media coverage. In addition, there is said to have been 1,900 euros a month for his membership in the parliamentary committee.

Since Ernst owns a vehicle made by Porsche , the media sometimes dubbed him “luxury leftists” or “Porsche-Klaus”. Other media suggest a connection to his membership of the IG Metall supervisory board at Porsche.

literature

  • Robert Lorenz: "Cold Fusion" technician. The leadership of the Left Party , in: Tim Spier u. a. (Ed.): The Left Party. A contemporary idea or an alliance without a future? , VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2007, ISBN 978-3-531-14941-7 , pp. 275–323.

Web links

Commons : Klaus Ernst  - Collection of Images
Wikiquote: Klaus Ernst  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b A Bavarian people's tribune , FAZ from July 4, 2005, page 4
  2. ↑ Klaus Ernst: "You should never bend down in front of a living person". An obituary for the economist and LINKE co-founder Herbert Schui. In: Neues Deutschland from August 17, 2016, p. 17
  3. ^ In the fall ballot on the new Left Party , NGO on May 26, 2004
  4. ↑ Sabine Beiler Friedvolle Bürscherl , Tagesspiegel of July 26, 2005
  5. ↑ a b Bavarian State Office for Statistics and Data Processing - State Returning Officer: Federal Parliament election results 2005
  6. ^ Stasi nostalgia: Left-wing politician calls for the dissolution of the DKP , spiegel.de 2008, accessed on March 19, 2014
  7. ↑ Party Congress. Ernst and Lötzsch lead the left , Spiegel , May 15, 2010
  8. ↑ Ulrich Schmid: Big team for a small party. nzz.ch from January 25, 2013, accessed on February 23, 2013
  9. ^ German Bundestag - Biographies. Retrieved May 6, 2020 .
  10. ↑ a b c Michael König, Porsche-Klaus and the "Life Lie" , Süddeutsche.de on August 9, 2010
  11. ^ The salary of the Left Party leader , Stern , August 2, 2010
  12. ↑ "I enjoy driving a Porsche" , picture , August 3, 2010
  13. ↑ Herbert Weber, with Porsche and platform shoes , Focus.de 17 August, 2010.
personal data
SURNAME Ernst, Klaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ernst, Klaus Friedrich (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade unionists and politicians (Die Linke), Member of the Bundestag
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich