Walter Riester

Walter Riester (2009)

Walter Riester (* 27. September 1943 in Kaufbeuren ) is a German politician of the SPD . From 1998 to 2002 he was Federal Minister for Labor and Social Affairs .

Life and work

After attending elementary school , Riester trained as a tiler from 1957 to 1960 . He then did his basic military service with the pioneer troops , but submitted an application for conscientious objection one month before the end of his service . He worked as a tiler until 1969 and passed his master craftsman examination in 1969. He then attended the Academy of Labor in Frankfurt am Main until 1970 and then worked as youth secretary for the DGB state district of Baden-Württemberg until 1977 . In 1977 he moved to the IG Metall administration office in Geislingen an der Steige , where he was secretary until 1978 and the second authorized representative until 1979. From 1980 to 1988, Riester was District Secretary at IG Metall Baden-Württemberg , until he succeeded Ernst Eisenmann as District Manager of IG Metall Baden-Württemberg in 1988 . From 1993 to 1998 he was the second chairman of IG Metall. Between 1976 and 1998 he was also a member of the supervisory boards of various German companies ( Bosch , Daimler-Chrysler, Thyssen , Audi , Rheinmetall , Heidelberger Druckmaschinen , WMF ).

In addition to his work as a member of the Bundestag, he appears as a speaker at various companies in the financial services sector and is a member of the supervisory board of ArcelorMittal Bremen . On October 1, 2009 Walter Riester became a member of the supervisory board of the financial services provider Union Asset Management Holding . Transparency International criticized Riester's (and Bert Rürup's ) business connections to the financial services provider AWD as an “example of political corruption ”.

Walter Riester is married and has two children.

Political party

Riester joined the SPD in 1966 and was a member of the federal party executive from 1988 to 2005.

MP

From 2002 to 2009 he was a member of the German Bundestag . From November 2005 to October 2009 he was deputy spokesman for the Economic Cooperation and Development Working Group of the SPD parliamentary group . For years he was considered a member of the Bundestag with the highest additional income .

Walter Riester represented the constituency of Göppingen, which was congruent with the district of Göppingen, and has always entered the Bundestag via the Baden-Württemberg state list. In 2009, Riester no longer ran for the Bundestag.

Public offices

On October 27, 1998 he was appointed Federal Minister for Labor and Social Affairs in the federal government led by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder . Closely linked to his name is the so-called Riester pension created during his term of office , a state-subsidized private pension plan that he introduced against the advice of Winfried Schmähl . After the federal election in 2002 , his ministry was dissolved. It was now in the Federal Ministry of Economics and Labor and the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Security . Walter Riester therefore resigned from the federal government on October 22, 2002.

Honors

• 2005: Merit Medal of the State of Baden-Württemberg
• 2005: Hans Böckler Prize of the City of Cologne
• 2009: Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 2010: Prize for Social Market Economy from the Konrad Adenauer Foundation

cabinet

• Schröder I cabinet

Web links

Commons : Walter Riester  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Walter Riester's website
• Biography at the German Bundestag
• Literature by and about Walter Riester in the catalog of the German National Library
• Profile page Walter Riester on parliament watch
• Deutschlandfunk Zeitzeugen in an interview on October 25, 2018, approx. 55 min

Individual evidence

1. ↑ CV. As of February 22, 2012.
2. ↑ Walter Riester (SPD) , on Parlamentwatch.de, as of March 25, 2009.
3. ↑ Matthias Thieme: "Unworthy and indecent". In: Frankfurter Rundschau , April 8, 2011.
4. ↑ Holger Balodis, Dagmar Hühne: The great pension lie. Why good and affordable old-age insurance is possible for everyone. Westend Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 2017, p. 14.
5. ↑ Holger Balodis, Dagmar Hühne: The great pension lie. Why good and affordable old-age insurance is possible for everyone. Westend Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 2017, p. 21.
6. ↑ Prize winners 2010: Regina Görner, Jochen F. Kirchhoff and Walter Riester - Prize for the Social Market Economy of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. Accessed on January 24, 2020 .