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Germany's AfD party vows to 'make history'
(www.dw.com)
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this post was submitted on 23 May 2026
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The chancellor is insulting us on daily basis. He calls us people lazy. He says we are unable to view reality as it is They want to let us work up to 13 hours per day. They want to raise the retirement age 3 years up to 70. They want to cut our health care. People who are unemployed should not get the same health care standard as the rest of the population. They want me to pay for my yearly dentist check, for my skin cancer check. More and more people get poorer and poorer, every day. They fuck up the youth, they want to introduce age verification and social media bans. What do they get in exchange? They should enlist in the army. The government is doing a huge push for fossil fuels, while at the same time cutting benefits for solar power. They are taking huge debts of 500 billion euros and promised to work on our rail infrastructure, they wasted almost everything. The government is full of corrupt people, an economic minister who is best friend with the fossil fuel and car lobby, a culture minister whose most important task is to fight against libraries (!) that are suspected of left extremism. I could go on and on, but I notice my fist is starting to hurt. This chancellor had the plan to halve the AfD polls.
Military build-up in Germany is necessary, yes. But what for if in a couple of years the fascists are in power?
It's no coincidence that the lobby groups pushing for age verification laws are the biggest data gathering companies in the world.
Trump has already shown it can be done. By sheer coincidence, Trump & Ghouls actively encourage them and cheer them on.
I(n Denmark we too can work 13 hours per day, the rule being that we must have 11 hours rest within 24 hours.
We also have had steadily increasing retirement age over the past years, currently peaking at 71 years.
We also pay most our dentist bills ourselves.
Regarding the potential 13 hour workday, most people don't care much, such extra time is almost always voluntary, and most often you can earn a day off at a later point by taking an extra half day of work.
IDK why people are so much against the possibility of working extra hours, it is generally voluntary, and if it is not, it's time to look for another job. Such a workplace will most likely suck, even without mandatory extra hours.
Regarding healthcare it's a very bad idea to make it worse for unemployed. It's a bad society that makes such discriminatory rules on a crucial issue like healthcare.
PS: Our government say we need to increase the retirement age because people get older. But we also get more automation and we also get richer all the time. So I doubt their claim that it is necessary is true.
I imagine it's the same "reason" in Germany.
The problem with the 13 hour day is that it almost only affects people working shitty jobs. It's not about your office job, but about working the meat industry, fast food whatever. It's about giving employers more flexibility about how they can exploit you better. Oh the other guy is sick? Then you are doing a 13 hour shift today, have fun! It is only voluntary if you can afford it. And telling more than 5 million people in the low income sector to look for a new job if they don't like their current one is one of the most privileged things you can say, almost US level.
I have worked manual jobs, where we were offered overtime, the incentives were always good enough for enough to volunteer.
I've worked both nights and weekends. Especially when young, many want that extra income, a little older and most prefer time off, for instance for extended holidays.
Absolutely.
That would be failure of the unions. AFAIK Germany has protected unions pretty much like we have here.
I am not talking about manual labor but low wage exploitation. Food delivery, meat processing, crop harvesting, parcel shipping - a job sector where a lot of non German EU citizen work and you often have short time contracts. I am not talking about being 25 years old working at VW making good money in the factory.
The time where unions were shining is long over in Germany, they have been legally weakened by politics. In many sectors the organization level is ridiculous. A lot of jobs aren't unionized or there are no adequate tarrifs contracts. IMO it is a rather neo liberal attitude saying it's the unions fault.
Maybe Germans should vote more left wing, if they want to be able to negotiating with employers on an equal footing.
Unfortunately we have some of the same problems here. It's as if people who own a house and a little bit of stock, think that now they are suddenly not wage workers anymore.
It is still their wages that enable what they have, but people forget that, and think they are somehow individual successes, when all they do is standing on the shoulders of the work the unions and labor friendly governments have done in the past.
Without them, Germany would be like USA. No holidays, insurance based health care, no free education. And the 1% owning twice as much of the wealth as they already do.
In the VAST majority of cases if you want to keep the job and advance you shut up, smile and take the hours. Just because is it is optional on paper doesn't mean shit.
As one who has experienced this frequently, you are dead wrong and don't know what you are talking about.
It seems hypothetically logical, but that is not how it works in reality.
As someone who has also experienced this frequently, YOU are the one dead wrong. Every time 'optional' overtime has been 'approved' by the upper management, the one guy who turns it down gets mysteriously let go for some inane reason and when I expressed desire to not work the extra hours, I would suddenly get worse assignments, management would be ruder and one time I got called in for a meeting for my 'attitude' problem and told everyone else was putting in more time, I should too because it makes everyone else angry at how lazy I am.
This has been in every company I have worked at that has done this
Wow, major cultural difference then. Are you in Germany?
That's what I would expect only in USA. Not from a single EU country, at least not the old Western European part of EU.
The problem is that about 2.5 million Germans don‘t even get minimum wage. At least not in practice and unpaid overtime is the main reason for it. If they make 13 hours the new standard, 15 to 18 hours will become reality for many.
Besides, endless studies have shown no meaningful benefit to productivity if you work above 8 hours a day. Instead you have increased sick leave and long term health issues. This will make productivity worse, not better. In fact many fields could benefit from working less than 8 hours a day but that‘s not even debated in the government.
One more thing people should know about Germany is that it‘s (for better or worse) a part time economy. If you increase work hours to 12 or even more hours a day it will mean mass unemployment because why pay benefits for 3 workers when you can pay them for just 2 „harder working“ employees? And what do you do then with millions of unemployed but educated and experienced young and middle aged people? Jobs aren‘t falling from the sky, especially not with so many unemployed people that can‘t contribute to the economy anymore. People will mass migrate somewhere else, making all problems even worse.
The problem in Germany is not productivity. It‘s the opposite! There aren‘t enough contracts. Increasing regular work hours will make things so much worse. It‘s an insane thing to even consider.
That‘s not even the the tip of the iceberg but I think I‘ve said enough for one comment. I hope it can illustrate the sheer incompetence of the German government.
That's a different problem, and I'm surprised the Germans are allowing that.
It's also completely contrary to what I've seen reported by many foreigners working in Germany, where clearly the norm is to have zero overtime.
Because I feel like the profits from working extra hours don't go to us, they go to the CEOs instead in the form of "bonuses" "second homes" "lucrative jobs at fossil & war industries" etc. It's corruption if the proletariat do not benefit from it.
No gods, no masters; all hierarchical, authoritarian and capitalist structures, must be destroyed. Only when the last Nazi and Capitalist sympathisers have breathed their death rattle, only then can society be free.
I feel like you should be able to see on your paycheck if you get paid or not.
The problem of the 1% getting the most is no different because you get a day off working ½ a day.
As I stated, I've never heard of anybody here complaining about the possibility to take extra hours.
If you don't want to, chances are you don't have to.