Union head rejects party link

President of the German DGB union confederation Michael Sommer has turned down an offer that he and his successors should have an automatic seat on the SPD social democrats’ executive committee.

The party wanted better relationships with the unions by ensuring the DGB leader was always a co-opted, non-voting member of its executive.

The only precondition was that he or she should be a party member.

Sommer, a long-time SPD member who, as DGB chief, already had a consultative seat in a much less powerful party body, was initially willing to accept the post.

But the plan was criticised by one of the DGB unions, the chemical and energy union, IGBCE. Its spokesman said “the party-political independence of the unions must be maintained”.

As a result, on 4 November, Sommer announced that he had changed his mind. He said he was not making himself available for any SPD office so as not “to damage the DGB and the unified union movement”.

Although Sommer will now not be an SPD executive member, other members of the five-strong DGB leadership have clear party connections.

His deputy Ingrid Sehrbrock is a member of the executive committee of the centre-right CDU, while Dietmar Hexel, responsible among other things for the confederation’s industrial policy, is a member of the SPD executive.