Social insurance of the Free German Trade Union Federation

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ID card for work and social insurance of the SV of the FDGB, 1966

The social insurance of the Free German Trade Union Confederation , during its existence mostly with the abbreviations SV FDGB , SV or SVK (social insurance fund), was the statutory health , accident and pension insurance for workers and employees in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). It existed from 1947 to 1990 and from 1951 was sponsored by the Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB), the umbrella organization of the individual trade unions in the GDR. The SV of the FDGB granted in addition to the coverage of health care and retirement provision, various other social benefits and was designed as compulsory insurance with a uniform contribution rate.

Services

Insurance benefits granted by the social security of the FDGB included care in the event of illness , pregnancy and maternity , retirement , accident and disability as well as the death of relatives. Each insured person held a social security card , which was approximately A6-sized and comprised around 60 pages, and which, along with the identity card, was the most important personal document of a GDR citizen. Relevant information, such as employment relationships subject to compulsory insurance , medical treatment subject to approval as well as remedies and aids, medical examinations for certain occupational groups and preventive examinations were entered in the SV card . It also acted as a vaccination certificate for children and young people .

The SV health insurance included outpatient and inpatient medical and dental treatment, the supply of medication , dentures and other remedies , the use of cures and rehabilitation measures as well as the payment of sickness and absence allowances free of charge and for an unlimited period of time . The continued payment of wages in the event of illness amounted to 50 percent of the gross wage subject to contributions for a period of 78 weeks, plus the difference between this sick pay and 90 percent of the net wages, which was granted by the employer for a period of six weeks. Since the gross wage was only subject to contributions up to an amount of 600 marks , the SV sickness benefit was set at a maximum of 300 marks per month.

The minimum amount of the monthly retirement pension from the SV was initially 300 and later 330 marks, based on a calculation basis of up to 15 working years and a monthly gross wage of 75 marks or more. It was staggered upwards with further recognized periods and with at least 45 recognized years of work and an average income of 600 marks in the last 20 years of work was 470 marks. From 1972 onwards, with a monthly income of more than 600 marks, a voluntary supplementary pension insurance could be taken out, from which in addition to the additional pension also a higher sickness benefit resulted. In addition, there were other supplementary pension insurances in certain companies and authorities.

Pregnancy and maternity allowances were paid for pregnant women and mothers, and support payments were made to care for sick children and spouses. Other SV benefits were accident , disability and survivors' pensions, as well as benefits for the blind , old age care allowances and grants for funeral costs .

financing

The social insurance of the FDGB was designed as a uniform compulsory insurance for all workers and employees and thus looked after around 90 percent of the GDR population. In addition to workers and employees , the compulsory insurance also applied to apprentices , students and technical school students as well as freelance doctors , dentists and veterinarians . The social security of other people, especially members of agricultural production cooperatives (LPG) and production cooperatives of the handicrafts (PGH) as well as self-employed entrepreneurs and self-employed persons with the exception of the medical professions, was the responsibility of the GDR State Insurance . In addition, there was a separate social insurance for the around 45,000 employees of the SDAG Wismut working in uranium mining , which was financed directly from the state budget of the GDR and the Soviet Union .

The uniform contribution rate was 20 percent of gross income with a maximum of 120 GDR marks per month. Half of the contribution was paid by the insured person and half by his employer , freelance persons insured in the SV of the FDGB paid the full contribution of 20 percent alone. In contrast to this, the contributions for workers in the mining industry were 10 percent for employees and 20 percent for employers. The companies also paid additional contributions for accident insurance, the amount of which resulted from a rate of 0.3 percent multiplied by a company-specific risk class per employee. Since state welfare was sought for social insurance instead of individual insurance in the GDR, the contributions were kept constant and any deficits were compensated for by state subsidies. The budget of the SV, financed according to the pay-as-you-go system , was part of the GDR state budget.

history

Social insurance was established in the Soviet Zone of Occupation (SBZ) on the basis of Order No. 28 of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) of January 28, 1947 on the introduction of a uniform system of social insurance and the improvement of its services in the Soviet Zone of Occupation and from associated ordinances of the German Central Administration for Labor and Social Welfare. With the founding of the GDR in October 1949, social security was anchored in Article 16 of the GDR constitution . Two years later, with an ordinance of the Council of Ministers of the GDR of April 26, 1951, the political and organizational responsibility for the SV was transferred from the social insurance institutions of the federal states to the FDGB, whose role was later also defined in Article 45 of the GDR constitution of 1968 .

After German reunification , the social insurance of the FDGB was created on the basis of the unification treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and the GDR into the "Überleitungsanstalt Sozialversicherung", which existed temporarily from January to December 1991. Subsequently, the existing statutory health and pension funds in Germany took over the insurance of the residents of the new federal states .

literature

  • Werner Russ: The social insurance in the GDR: An investigation with special consideration of the objectives of the Marxist-Leninist social policy. RG Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1982, ISBN 3-88-323243-2 .
  • Social policy V: In the German Democratic Republic. Section: Social Security Policy through Social Insurance. In: Willi Albers: Concise dictionary of economics. Fischer, Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3-52-510253-4 , pp. 142-145
  • Excursus: Establishing a unified insurance in the GDR. In: Tanja Klenk: Innovation and Continuity: The Organizational Reform in the Statutory Pension Insurance. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 3-53-115817-1 , pp. 92–94
  • The second circle: The social insurance of workers and employees and the social insurance with the state insurance of the GDR. In: Manfred G. Schmidt: Social Policy of the GDR. Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-81-004108-4 , pp. 35–37

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e FDGB-Lexikon (working version): Social Insurance (SV) ; Edited by Dieter Dowe, Karlheinz Kuba and Manfred Wilke and edited by Michael Kubina, Research Association SED State at the Free University of Berlin, Berlin 2005 (accessed on December 2, 2008)
  2. ^ Willi Albers: Concise dictionary of economics. Stuttgart 1977, p. 144
  3. ↑ a b GDR Lexicon: Insurance (accessed on December 2, 2008)
  4. ^ Willi Albers: Concise dictionary of economics. Stuttgart 1977, p. 142
  5. ^ Manfred G. Schmidt: Social policy of the GDR. Wiesbaden 2004, p. 35
  6. ↑ a b c Willi Albers: Concise dictionary of economics. Stuttgart 1977, p. 143
  7. ^ Constitution of the German Democratic Republic of October 7, 1949 (accessed December 2, 2008)
  8. ^ Constitution of the German Democratic Republic of April 6, 1968 (accessed December 2, 2008)
  9. ↑ Dierk Hoffmann: Sandra Carius: Project: Unified Social Insurance Review, sehepunkte 9 (2009) No. 10
  10. ↑ Appendix I, Chapter VIII: Subject F - Social Insurance (General Provisions) of the Unification Treaty