Ricarda Lang, a Green party labor and social policy spokesperson, has called for a legal right to full‑time work as part of the ongoing debate about part‑time employment. “Employees should have a statutory entitlement to increase their working hours up to full time whenever an employer has the capacity to accommodate that workload” she told newspapers of the Funke Media Group on Wednesday. “If we take flexibility seriously, we also need to expand bridge part‑time, or transitional full‑time arrangements, substantially”.
Lang stresses that the goal is to make work and life compatible, not merely to increase availability. She says this can only happen if the care and support infrastructure is massively expanded, so that “compatibility becomes an everyday reality rather than a matter of goodwill”. The former Green party leader notes that part‑time workers often raise children, care for relatives or volunteer, and that such arrangements are “not lazy, they’re dignified”. She points out that some people work part‑time because their jobs are physically demanding.
The Greens claim that the CDU’s initiative to restrict the statutory right to part‑time work amounts to an assault on workers’ rights. While some factions within the Union still claim they are promoting flexibility, Gitta Connemann states plainly that the real aim is “fewer rights, less protection, and less freedom for employees”. Lang accuses the economic wing of the Union of demonstrating how ignorant the party is of everyday life in Germany, especially for women.
Women, she says, often wish to work more hours but are hampered by lack of infrastructure and employer willingness. Rather than solving these problems, the Union allegedly insults the public as lazy and portrays the country in a negative light. According to Lang, this policy makes work – particularly for women – less attractive and fails to address the true skills shortage. “The Union wants a full‑time compulsion; we demand an entitlement to full time” she declares.
The CDU politician Gitta Connemann introduced the concept of “lifestyle part‑time” sharply narrowing the previously recognized right to part‑time work and sparking a heated discussion on working hours and employee rights.
