taz: Ms. Bücker, do you work part-time?
Teresa Bücker: I work independently, so I can’t say exactly. I also have two children that I look after largely alone – so on average that’s sometimes more, sometimes less gainful work.
taz: Do you feel addressed by the SME Union’s demand to do a little more now, for the benefit of everyone, so that the economy is booming again?
In the interview: Teresa Bücker
41, works as a freelance author and presenter on the topics of feminism, work and society. In 2022, her non-fiction book “Alle_Zeit – A Question of Power and Freedom” was published by Ullstein Verlag. In it she calls for a radically new, socially just contemporary culture. Bücker is a mother of two children and lives in Berlin.
Bücker: Personally, I don’t feel addressed. As a political person, very well. It upsets me how distorted the portrayal in Germany is of who works and how much. This image is presented that people are lazy. On the one hand, this has not been empirically proven. That being said, belittling, berating, insulting people is not the right way to build trust. It’s actually time to praise people for how hard-working they are.
taz: In European comparison We work slightly less than average every week and also less than ten years ago. At the same time, pension and nursing care funds are under pressure because more and more people entitled to benefits are faced with fewer and fewer people paying in. Doesn’t it make sense to bring more people into full-time jobs?
Bücker: I would say: It’s not wrong to have a conversation about what keeps people from working the way they would like to work. The fact is: The volume of working hours in Germany has grown constantly, Every year we have become more diligent. The weekly working hours only seem low because we have such a high proportion of part-time and mini-jobs.
taz: In other words: More people are working, but part-time. Then surely there is still a need for action?
Bücker: We have to look at how this work is distributed and who does it. Specifically: Women are more likely to work part-time, but why is that? But perhaps we should first ask ourselves a critical question: Should 40 hours be the norm? Is that compatible with the work that society still has to do?
taz: You mean the recognition of Care workwhich has been talked about a lot in recent years.
Bücker: Exactly. We were already further along in the debate than the Union’s initiative suggests. We are currently experiencing an attack on the achievements of equality policy and on workers’ rights. What is coming from the Union now is an authoritarian gesture. It’s about restricting freedoms and taking back rights that have been fought for. This has so far been a lost legislature for family and equality policy.
taz: Women with small children under the age of three in particular work part-time – 73 percent. For men it is only 9 percent. Less than half of young mothers are even employed. What would have to change?
Bücker: Expanding daycare centers is often cited as the only solution to get women out of the part-time trap. But that’s not enough. The care work in families that has to be carried out beyond care times must be taken into account. We need a new understanding of full-time. 40 hours is too much.
taz: What would be the upper limit for you?
Bücker: I would say: 30 hours. That’s also what parents say in surveys: a combined 60 hours a week for the job.
taz: If everyone works less but receives the same wages, who should finance that?
Bücker: The economy wouldn’t collapse if we all only worked 30 hours. We wouldn’t work less, it would be a redistribution. Working hours are very polarized individually. Many people who work full time have 50 or 60 hour weeks. It would be particularly important for women that those who want to increase their membership can do so. To achieve this, one person in a partnership would have to reduce and take on more care work.
taz: So more men working part-time instead of everyone working full-time?
Bücker: Yes, one goal of equality policy would be to increase the part-time quotas of men. The Union attacks this diametrically: Even fathers who, for example, only want to reduce their hours to 36 hours, should now be kept full-time. This is an enormous step backwards because it boils down to the traditional family model and the traditional division of labor.
taz: Then women would have to earn just as much as men – the famous gender pay gap – so that the family can continue to afford everyday life.
Bücker: Yes. We always say women have to work more. But then wages in women’s jobs must also rise. This is what makes it possible for families to both work part-time. We need different levers to apply. But the political debate has become very focused on a simple “work more”. Ultimately, we are also having a democratic debate here: What constitutes a stable community? It is surprising that parties in particular do not recognize how much our democracy is based on people having time to get involved: in neighborhood help, in sports clubs, in political work against the right.