Cempaka Belanda: Business lobbying against German minimum wage revealed

"A Summary" – Apr 2, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Religion, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Intelligent/Benevolent Design, EU, South America, 5 Currencies, Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Middle East, Internet, Israel, Dictators, Palestine, US, Japan (Quake/Tsunami Disasters , People, Society ...), Nuclear Power Revealed, Hydro Power, Geothermal Power, Moon, Financial Institutes (Recession, Realign integrity values ..) , China, North Korea, Global Unity,..... etc.) - (Text version)

"The Timing of the Great Shift" – Mar 21, 2009 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“ … Here is another one. A change in what Human nature will allow for government. "Careful, Kryon, don't talk about politics. You'll get in trouble." I won't get in trouble. I'm going to tell you to watch for leadership that cares about you. "You mean politics is going to change?" It already has. It's beginning. Watch for it. You're going to see a total phase-out of old energy dictatorships eventually. The potential is that you're going to see that before 2013.
They're going to fall over, you know, because the energy of the population will not sustain an old energy leader ..."

"Update on Current Events" – Jul 23, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: The Humanization of God, Gaia, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Benevolent Design, Financial Institutes (Recession, System to Change ...), Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Nuclear Power Revealed, Geothermal Power, Hydro Power, Drinking Water from Seawater, No need for Oil as Much, Middle East in Peace, Persia/Iran Uprising, Muhammad, Israel, DNA, Two Dictators to fall soon, Africa, China, (Old) Souls, Species to go, Whales to Humans, Global Unity,..... etc.)

"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

“… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …”

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Business lobbying against German minimum wage revealed

Lobbyists from the farming and newspaper sectors worked hard to win exceptions to Germany's minimum wage, it has been revealed. But the employers' representatives don't think it did them much good.

Deutsche Welle, 30 July 2015

Workers in a field (Photo: imago/Ralph Lueger)

Germany is seven months into its new minimum wage, but not everyone is happy. The government has now admitted that lobbyists from a number of different sectors had urged it add exceptions to the new rule that no one in the country should earn less than 8.50 euros ($9.40) an hour.

The information, shown to DW on Thursday, emerged thanks to an official parliamentary request by the German Left party. Particularly persistent were representatives of the farmers' and newspaper publishers' associations, who met government representatives a total of 15 times in the months leading up to the law being passed in parliament.

The pressure seems to have been effective - both the agriculture sectors and the newspaper sectors won delays in implementing the minimum wage. Temporary farm-workers can be paid below minimum wage unto the end of 2016, while newspaper deliverers can be paid less until the end of 2017.

Nahles (right) had to defend the
minimum wage against serious lobbying

Success or failure?

"The economic lobbyists have made sure that entire sectors have been left behind by the minimum wage," Left party parliamentarian Michael Schlecht said in an emailed statement. "Particularly the lobbyists of the publishers' and the farmers' associations clearly felt a lot more need to speak to the government during the lawmaking process."

"The result is well known," he added. "Hundreds of thousands of people did not benefit from the introduction of the minimum wage at the start of the year."

But the German Farmers' Association (BDV) don't think they gained much advantage. "We were invited to hearings, like every interest group, and we think it's legitimate to describe what happens in practice, in business," BDV spokesman Michael Lohse told DW.

The farmers also argued that the minimum wage will have a real impact on their business when it comes into full effect for temporary workers during the 2017 harvest.

"We analyzed that and communicated it - we will have to lose some production abroad," Lohse said. "In Romania and Bulgaria they have a minimum wage of one or two euros. Go shopping with your eyes open one day - there's half a kilogram of cherries for 7.50 euros from Brandenburg, and you have two kids who like to eat cherries, and you decide if you want cherries for 7.50 euros, or you buy the ones from Bulgaria for 3.50 euros. Then of course the retailer turns round and tells the farmer I can't buy your cherries anymore. Then production goes abroad and it will cost jobs - that's all we said. And that's legitimate."

More bureaucracy

Another complaint against the minimum wage was the amount of bureaucracy involved. At the end of June, Labor Minister Andrea Nahles, who drove the new minimum wage legislation, bowed to pressure and eased the regulations forcing employers in certain sectors to record how many hours their lowest paid workers were working.

Cherries are cheaper in Bulgaria

Up until then, the new minimum wage law stipulated that employers in the construction and gastronomy sectors, and others considered to be particularly susceptible to off-the-books work, had to document the number of hours logged by anyone earning less that 2,958 euros a month. That cap has now been lowered to 2,000 euros a month.

But Lohse was not happy with the whole new system. "If you have 100 or 200 people on a field and one of them has to leave, you have to write that down," he complained. "If they go home to have lunch, you have to document that - if it rains, or there's a storm. There are special conditions during the harvest time and these documentation obligations all take a heavy toll."

The conservative sections of the government coalition - both Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union - have been pressing for corrections to the law.

But Nahles' Social Democratic Party can also point to considerable successes - in May it could announce that 3.7 million people in Germany had received a pay raise as a result of the minimum wage, and that dependence on social benefits had declined. Also, fears that the new law would lead to a sharp rise in unemployment figures have so far proved untrue.