Monika Wulf-Mathies

Monika Wulf-Mathies, 2018

Monika Wulf-Mathies, b. Baier (born March 17, 1942 in Wernigerode ) is a German trade unionist , manager, SPD politician and former EU commissioner.

Life

In 1965 Monika Baier joined the SPD and in 1968 married the physicist Carsten Wulf-Mathies. After studying history , German and economics at the Universities of Hamburg and Freiburg im Breisgau, Monika Wulf-Mathies became a Dr. phil. PhD. In 1971 she became assistant in the press office of Federal Minister of Economics Karl Schiller and in 1973 she moved to the Federal Chancellery during the Chancellorship of Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt , where she took over the management of the Social and Social Policy Department. In 1976 she was appointed to the executive board of the public services, transport and traffic union (ÖTV) today ( ver.di ) for social, women's and health policy. On September 29, 1982, she was surprisingly elected as the successor to ÖTV chairman Heinz Kluncker on his suggestion. As the first female chairman of a DGB union at the head of the second largest individual trade union in Germany, she advocated the goal of a 35-hour week with full wages and achieved a reduction in working hours to 39.7 hours with moderate wage increases in 1984 and a further reduction in working hours in 1988 38.5 hours.

In 1992 there was an arbitration in the public service , but this was rejected by the employers. After a strike, the size of the arbitrator's verdict was ultimately agreed.

In 1994 the ÖTV achieved a tariff increase of two percent, which was accompanied by several zero months and freezes and cuts in numerous additional services, so that in fact, despite the labor dispute, it was a zero round. From 1989 to 1995 Wulf-Mathies was President of the International Public Services. After her nomination as the German EU Commissioner to succeed Peter Schmidhuber became known in September 1994 , she resigned as ÖTV chairwoman on November 10, 1994. In 1995 Herbert Mai was elected her successor in this function.

From 1995 to 1999, Wulf-Mathies was Commissioner for Regional Policy and Cohesion of the EU Commission under Jacques Santer , which had to resign prematurely after numerous allegations of corruption. The most important of these allegations were not directed against Wulf-Mathies, but a case of nepotism was also proven. From 1999 to 2000 she acted as a European policy advisor in the Federal Chancellery of Federal Chancellor Gerhard Schröder for a symbolic salary . From 2001 to 2008 Wulf-Mathies was Head of Politics and Sustainability at Deutsche Post AG . Her successor was Rainer Wend on April 1, 2009 . She was President of the European Movement Germany from 2001 to 2006 and has been its Honorary President since then. She is a member of the board of trustees of the Carlo Schmid Foundation .

She is a member of the Convention for Germany and the advisory board of the Association Against Forgetting - For Democracy . Since 2010 she has also been chairwoman of the Fest.Spiel.Haus.Freunde association. for the Beethoven Festspielhaus in Bonn.

Wulf-Mathies prepared a report on how WDR dealt with allegations of sexual harassment by broadcasters.

literature

• Jürgen Mittag: From a group of dignitaries to a European network: Six decades of the European movement in Germany . ( Memento from January 18, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) in: 60 Years of the European Movement in Germany . Berlin 2009. pp. 12–28.

Web links

• Literature by and about Monika Wulf-Mathies in the catalog of the German National Library
• Monika Wulf-Mathies contemporary witness in a video interview

Individual evidence

1. ↑ RP online June 8, 2000 "So far two major strikes in the public sector"
2. ↑ DIE ZEIT (archive): Europe: Chancellor Kohl sends the ÖTV boss Monika Wulf-Mathies to the commission in Brussels: Away from the grassroots . In: The time . September 9, 1994, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed March 8, 2019]).
3. ↑ Background: The previous heads of the ÖTV . In: Spiegel Online . November 8, 2000 ( spiegel.de [accessed March 8, 2019]).
4. ↑ Dirk Koch, Silvia Schreiber: The Stammtisch GmbH . In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 1999, p. 37-38 ( online ).
5. ↑ Wulf-Mathies adopted as post director . In: cio / dpa , December 8, 2008. Accessed December 18, 2008.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.   
6. ↑ Noon 2009: 29
7. ↑ Allegations of sexual harassment at WDR: "Power imbalance between male bosses and female subordinates". In: Spiegel Online . September 12, 2018, accessed October 7, 2018 .