Berlin, 10 January 2021. Employer President Dr. Rainer Dulger in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgmeinen Sonntagszeitung about limits of home office, pandemic protection in the workplace and the perspective for the time after Corona - and warns against further restrictions:

Mr. Dulger, do employers allow too little Homeoffice?

Everywhere home office is possible, companies have made it possible. It is often overlooked that manufacturing companies and also many services only run if the employees are also on site in the companies. On this subject, therefore, we must not lapse into an elitist discussion that fails to take account of reality. For example, when I look at my own business: There are people at the machines so that we can deliver our products. You can't do that in a home office.

The situation has changed. Currently, only about half as many workers are in home offices as in the spring. Why?

In the spring, many employees were rightly sent to the home office. No one had any experience with the virus. And hygiene concepts had not been rolled out in the factories. That's changed. Today, I observe at least a trend among my employees who have an office job, that after a long phase at home, people like to come back to the company to see their colleagues again - only at a distance, but still.

Can infection control in companies still be improved?

We have achieved a lot in recent months together with our employees to make work safe in Corona times. These included pandemic plans, a variety of home office and data protection regulations, and collective bargaining agreements. In our own company we have done everything possible: for example, we have increased cleaning frequencies, introduced one-way systems, closed the canteen since February. We have not had any traceable infections in the workplace, and the rate of infection has been low elsewhere.

People have to catch it somewhere. There are now calls to close all businesses for two weeks. At least then the lockdown would be over sooner.

This is absurd. You can't close all the businesses. People still need to be fed and the country kept running. In addition, you are driving companies that are already on the brink of insolvency. If you have no revenue for two weeks, you exacerbate the difficult economic situation we are in. We need to keep people pandemic-proofed, as best we can, in bread and work. Value creation is the only way we can keep our social systems alive, which are taking care of everybody right now.

In December, you were still against a store closure; your predecessor already thought the lax November shutdown was too harsh. Do the employers bear a share of the responsibility for the high infection figures?

When I look at the overcrowded ski slopes in some parts of Germany and at the same time the retail trade and the many catering establishments are closed, I notice: there is obviously a disproportion. At petrol stations and in supermarkets you can enter the shop with a mask and pay at the checkout with a distance. Why can't this work the same way in retail? Politics is in danger of losing people over this ambivalence. Our position was and is: The restrictive measures should be relaxed as quickly as possible, but with intelligent hygiene and protection concepts.

Do you think the new tightening of the lockdown is right?

In principle, yes. But the individual measures must of course always be reassessed. Now is the time to look forward and talk politics about the post-Corona era. We must learn from our experiences. At the moment we are witnessing how the Federal Chancellery, together with 16 prime ministers and a few virologists, is only ever talking about the next two or three weeks. However, we need to talk about how to proceed in the coming months, taking due account of the views of practitioners in the workplace. That is why policy-makers must take concerted action to involve the social partners in this issue: What happens next in March, April, into August?

There are also unanswered questions about the post-pandemic period.

These are the crucial ones, after all! Instead of always driving by sight, we need a long-term post-Corona strategy. We have a challenge that is perhaps greater than the one after reunification - now even with a global dimension. At that time there was a comprehensive reform process with a clear thrust, which would also be appropriate now. After all, the money we're losing right now has to be made again. That is why we need not just a moratorium on burdens, but an unleashing offensive. Politicians must not keep making new demands on us employers.

In the crisis, companies have been calling for help from the state. Will he just pull out afterwards?

The aid packages were good and important. But they will disappear again when we return to a normal life. Then the money has to be paid back - by the companies to the state, but also by the state to its lenders. That only works when the economy is really humming. That is why we also urgently need to push ahead with digitalisation. We saw how important this is during the crisis.

Everybody is talking about digitalization. What does that mean in concrete terms?

I'm sitting in the Odenwald right now and have to talk to you on the phone because the Internet line is not sufficient for a video conference. In future, it must also be possible to work on a mobile basis or to maintain an industrial operation in rural regions. It's always the same in Germany: In theoretical knowledge we are giants, in practical action we are dwarfs. Things are starting to go in the right direction with digital infrastructure when I see fiber optic cables being buried all over the place around here. That's how it has to be with other issues.

Digitization isn't done with cables after all.

Of course not! The megatopic of digitization is so multifaceted: digitization is a flexibility topic, a competition topic, an education topic, a start-up topic, in other words, above all, a social topic. Take education alone: Here we need digital high-speed instead of cultural bureaucracy. This is where our future will be decided, this is where we are competing with other industrial nations. Businesses also need to develop digital solutions for their customers at breakneck speed. Think self-driving or electric-powered cars.

But German carmakers weren't at the forefront of that.

Nobody is always at the forefront. The important thing is that we play up front. I'm not worried about that at all. A large proportion of patent applications for self-driving functions come from Germany. But for that to happen, the framework conditions have to be right for the factories for the car of the future to be located in Germany.

The most spectacular factory is being built by an American.

So what? We need to move away from national perspectives. German companies have built hundreds of factories in China, and I don't recall that making the Chinese uncomfortable. Just look who owns a large part of Mercedes or Siemens. We live in a globalised world, and national unilateralism has had its day. The main thing is that the factories are here with us and the jobs of tomorrow are created in Germany. And for this, the framework conditions must be right, not only in terms of infrastructure.

But?

We must create the future now! Agenda 2020 was yesterday. This includes, above all, not continuing to ignore demographics, or our social spending. We need to cap non-wage costs at 40 percent, preferably in a law with constitutional status. Otherwise, the social costs will grow over our heads, and that will weaken Germany as a business location.

Just recently, many health insurance companies increased their contributions. How do you want to counteract this?

Wages and salaries are also rising, and the number of employees is almost as high as never before. We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

Saving on health is not a popular topic after the pandemic.

Then let's start with pensions. Look: I was born in 1964, which is the baby boom generation - I'm part of the baby boomer generation. This makes it clear that in ten years at the latest there will be an imbalance between recipients and contributors, and the pressure on our social security systems will become ever greater as a result of this demographic change. That is why the retirement age must be raised.

What age do you have in mind?

I cannot tell you here and now. My generation has a responsibility to work longer where they can and where they can. We need to raise the limit wherever people can and want to work longer. Of course, there are also professions in which they can't work forever, that's clear.

So you want to make retirement more flexible?

Why not? We need to have this discussion honestly. There is no alternative but for the costs from the ageing of society to be spread across the generations - because that is the only way to maintain long-term confidence in the state pension.