Klaus Wiesehügel

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Klaus Wiesehügel (2006)

Klaus Wiesehügel (born May 1, 1953 in Mülheim an der Ruhr ) is a German trade unionist. From 1995 to 2013 he was federal chairman of the IG Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt (IG BAU).

Live and act

Wiesehügel was born the son of a concrete farmer. Until 1958 he lived on his grandfather's farm. After graduating from technical college (FOS), he learned the profession of concrete worker from 1969 to 1972 . He then worked for the Hochtief construction company until 1974 . In 1974 he became the junior secretary of the Bau-Steine-Erden industrial union (IG BSE). In 1975 he attended the Dortmund Social Academy (SAD) for one year . From 1978 to 1983 he was secretary of the trade union district associations Mülheim / Oberhausen and Krefeld.

In 1995 Wiesehügel was elected to succeed Bruno Köbele as federal chairman of IG BAU and was at the head of the fourth largest individual union in the DGB until 2013 . In 2002 Wiesehügel successfully ended a labor dispute - the first construction workers' strike since World War II . In 2005 Wiesehügel was confirmed with 94.1 percent of the vote - his best result.

In the 14th electoral period (1998 to 2002) Wiesehügel was a member of the SPD in the German Bundestag (constituency 138 Frankfurt am Main I - Main-Taunus) and one of the sharpest internal critics of the then Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder . He is considered to be one of the main initiators of an internal SPD counter paper to the so-called Schröder-Blair paper , the predecessor of Agenda 2010 . IG BAU, under Wiesehügel's leadership, fought the “retirement at 67” the most violently of all DGB unions. As a member of the so-called Rürup Commission during the 15th electoral term, he gave a minority vote together with other union-oriented commission members.

In May 2013, Wiesehügel joined the “competence team” of the SPD candidate for Chancellor Peer Steinbrück, who continued to defend Schröder's Agenda 2010 policy, for the areas of labor and social affairs. At the same time, Wiesehügel announced that he would no longer run for federal chairmanship at the next trade union day of IG Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt a week before the federal election in September 2013 . Wiesehügel had meanwhile moved away from his fundamental opposition to retirement at 67. In a newspaper interview shortly after the election, he claimed the Ministry of Labor for himself. The SPD commissioned the SPD General Secretary Andrea Nahles to lead the coalition negotiations in the field of labor and social affairs. Nahles became Minister of Labor and Social Affairs in 2013, while Wiesehügel remained without a political office or mandate.

Wiesehügel was the first President of the Construction and Woodworkers International (BWI) from 2005 to 2013 , which was created in December 2005 from a merger of the International Federation of Construction and Woodworkers (IFBWW) and the World Association of Construction and Woodworkers Organizations (WVBH). BWI represents approximately 12 million union members from 130 countries. Wiesehügel has been President of the Executive Board of the IG-BAU Foundation for Social Society - Sustainable Development since 2014 .

criticism

In 2010, IG Bau under Wiesehügel, who was a member of the Hochtief supervisory board, agreed in the dispute over the takeover of the majority of shares in the German construction group Hochtief by the Spanish group ACS , that Hochtief would remain an independent company under German stock corporation law, respect German collective agreements and works agreements and ACS, as the majority shareholder , will not push for redundancies for operational reasons. For this, Wiesehügel was severely criticized by the German Association for Protection of Securities Owners and the works council of Hochtief AG. It was supposed to have made the takeover possible through the agreement. The workforce representatives and the then Hochtief CEO Herbert Lütkestratkötter described the process supported by Wiesehügel as a "hostile takeover". The aim of ACS is to cannibalize the German construction company. According to later press reports, the fears were confirmed, the canning began and the chairman of the board and the works council lost their posts, while Wiesehügel was still in office as a member of the supervisory board.

During his tenure as IG BAU federal chairman, the number of employees in the construction industry fell by 43 percent from 1.3 million in 1996 to 740 thousand in 2011, while the number of union members fell by 56 percent from 692,466 (1996) to 297,763 (2012) decreased, i.e. significantly more. At the same time, "industries that also belong to the organizational area of ​​IG BAU - such as building cleaning and facility management - have expanded in recent decades", without IG BAU having been able to benefit from it.

After Wiesehügel's withdrawal from the union leadership in 2013, IG BAU officials drew a negative balance. IG BAU no longer has any attractive campaigns for its core industries, good approaches have been crushed in internal competency wrangling and no counter-strategy to the falling membership numbers can be seen. In contrast, IG Metall has been successful. Wiesehügel's management style was also criticized, which led to “incoherent work” and “senseless advertising”.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Wiesehügel at the Munzinger Archive .
  2. ↑ a b Klaus Wiesehügel in a portrait of a reluctant worker. FAZ , June 7, 2007, archived from the original on April 2, 2016 . ;.
  3. ↑ Steinbrück brings the union boss into the shadow cabinet. In: Der Spiegel , May 10, 2013.
  4. ↑ Focus ("Headlines") ( Memento from November 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ www.igbau.de. ( Memento from June 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ Retire at the age of 63 without deductions. In: Rheinische Post , May 27, 2013.
  7. ↑ Wiesehügel claims the Ministry of Labor for itself. In: New Germany .
  8. ↑ An unequal pair. In: FAZ .
  9. ↑ [1]
  10. ↑ IG BAU press release and agreement text (PDF). ( Memento from October 24, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ Hochtief works council calls for the resignation of trade unionists. In: Der Spiegel , December 29, 2010.
  12. ↑ Construction companies on the brink. In: KONTEXT: Wochenzeitung / Die Tageszeitung , August 14, 2013.
  13. ↑ DGB membership figures 1994-1999, membership figures IG BAU 1996 , www.dgb.de.
  14. ↑ DGB membership figures 1994-1999, membership figures IG BAU 2012 , www.dgb.de.
  15. ↑ Gap in strategy. In: Junge Welt .
  16. ↑ Brute criticism in parting. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , July 30, 2013.
  17. ^ Criticism of the Steinbrück campaigner Wiesehügel. In: Die Welt , July 30, 2013.
personal data
SURNAME Meadow hill, Klaus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German trade union chairman (IG Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt), politician (SPD), Member of the Bundestag
DATE OF BIRTH May 1, 1953
PLACE OF BIRTH Mülheim an der Ruhr , Germany