General Policies and Strategic Alliances
On the national level IG BAU is lobbying against the planned social insurance pension age of 67 (instead of 65). IG BAU is also very active on the European level and is pushing for a general reform of the general treaties of the European Union with the aim to guarantee workers rights on the European level. IG BAU was one of the most active unions fighting against the so-called Bolkestein directive. IG BAU has been also actively fighting the GATS agreement of the WTO, especially the cross-border provision of services under "mode 4" of the GATS (in which workers are sent to a different country by companies with the working conditions of their country-of-origin still applying).
There are individual links of union officials to several political parties like the social-democratic party, Christian-democratic party, green party and leftist party of Germany but in general IG BAU tries to develop an independent policy and to influence all democratic parties in Germany.
IG BAU was one of the first unions which reached out to the ecologist movement in Germany and to form strategical alliances with other NGOs. IG BAU joined the Forest Stewardship Council FSC at an early stage and was in the leadership to form a German branch of the FSC together with the national chapters of Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (BUND) and WWF in Germany. IG BAU also helped to create other eco-social consumer labels like the "flower-label", "banafair" and "xertifix". Together with Greenpeace Germany IG BAU lobbied successful for environmental-friendly housing and energy-saving buildings.
Read more about this topic: IG Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt
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