The pension laws of 1957 have cut a deep wedge in the circle of the approximately 19 million [people] on social security. Tens of thousands of better paid white-collar workers moved into private insurances. In the tenth year of the separate existence of the Bonn state, the “reform” of turning back the social medical insurance and accident insurance is on the agenda. The employers’ associations, supported by the state apparatus, have currently launched a new campaign whose goal is the elimination of the minor, statutory compensatory wage increases they are required to pay. As the Industriekurier [Industrial Courier] of August 15, 1959 reports, they cynically describe the 90% of net wages to which a worker is entitled since July 1, 1957, if he is unable to work because of illness, as “a blessing that is becoming a plague.”
In spite of the existence of a uniform union organization, in spite of groundbreaking and joint interzonal decrees on the uniform revamping of social security in all of Germany, the CDU succeeded in eliminating important principles of social security in West Germany through the legal path of parliamentary legislation. The working class and its organizations had every reason to celebrate the tenth anniversary of this separate state as a day to reflect on their own, their class strength.
The community of action with the class organizations of the ruling working class in the German Democratic Republic could stop the disastrous course of this development and gradually direct it forward to perfect social security. No worker in West Germany therefore celebrated the founding of this separate state, commanded by the Western powers, that took place on September 20, 1949.
By contrast, the workers in the GDR observe the tenth anniversary of their state on October 7, [1949] as a great and joyous celebration. By eliminating the basic German malady, the power of the imperialists and militarists, and concentrating political and economic power in their hands, they created the foundation for a continuously perfected social security, of the kind that is impossible in capitalism. The political power in the hands of the working class and the ideological and organizational unity in its ranks, embodied by the Socialist Unity Party and the Free Federation of German Trade Unions, are its highest accomplishment.
The increasing social security in the GDR is most evident in job security. The right to work is law, and in practice it is already a matter of course. Equal pay for equal work has already been guaranteed since 1946. Co-determination of the workers in the economy, in the regulation of production and of working conditions, is law and living practice. The previous state supervision of workplace safety has been handed over to the unions. The protection of youth is being constantly improved. Health care and medical treatment are guaranteed free of cost to the population through the state health administration in very close cooperation with the doctors and social security.
The administration of the social security of workers and employees is done by the unions. The workers participate directly in the exercise of state power on all levels of the economy. To the same degree that they harvest the fruits of their labor in building socialism, the benefits of their social security also improve year by year. Workers and employees have been enjoying material security through workplace wage compensation in case of inability to work due to illness or accident since 1946. And sick pay and wage compensation are paid from the first day of sickness.
In the tenth year of the workers’ and farmers’ state, the minimum pension was raised to 115 DM per month. To that are added supplemental payments in the amount of 9 DM in the GDR and 12 DM in [East] Berlin to make up for the discontinuation of food ration cards. The care for the health and material well-being of mother and child has reached a level that no couple need deny themselves the joy of children.
In the tenth year of the German Democratic Republic, the government, in agreement with the unions, increased the personal care allowance of social security for disabled and seriously disabled persons from 120 DM to 180 DM, so far. The highest level of personal care allowance is 240 DM. The previous time limit on the cost absorption in case of hospital treatment was lifted. As of July 1, 1959, the costs will be borne by social insurance for an unlimited time. The number of miners who receive the full miners’ pension beginning at age fifty was considerably expanded, and the person who has not yet attained entitlement at age fifty because he cannot demonstrate twenty-five years of mining work, receives the full miners’ pension also at sixty after fifteen years of mining work. The requirement is only that he is still part of mining insurance at the time the pension payment begins.
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