Michael Vassiliadis
Michael Zissis Vassiliadis (born 13 March 1964) is President[1] of the Mining, Chemical and Energy Workers' Union (IG Bergbau, Chemie, Energie, IG BCE) in Germany and President[2] of the European Confederation of Industrial Trade Unions IndustriAll Europe.
He held various posts before, in 1997, the union became part of IG Bergbau, Chemie, Energie (IGB CE), and he became secretary of its board in Hannover.
[5] Triggered by a conflict at the automotive supplier Continental, Vassiliadis launched an initiative in autumn 2020 to reform corporate co-determination with the aim of abolishing the double voting rights of the chairman of the supervisory board.
[6] Vassiliadis sees the most important task of the trade unions in shaping the transformation of society through digitisation and climate protection in a socially, economically, and ecologically sustainable way.
[9] In addition, in his view, industry needs a price guarantee for green electricity so that companies will remain internationally competitive and will not relocate capacities.
As a member of the German government's Commission on Growth, Structural Change and Employment, Vassiliadis helped negotiate the phase-out of coal-fired power generation.
[14] In addition, the regions affected by the coal phase-out would receive 40 billion euro in financial support for structural change.
In July 2020, Vassiliadis criticised what he saw as an overly unspecific orientation of the SPD in the relationship between work and the environment with regard to the transformation of the car industry.
"[17] Vassiliadis sees the massive expansion of remote work in the Covid crisis as a challenge to co-determination and internal democracy.
"[18] At the end of March 2017, Vassiliadis contradicted SPD party leader Martin Schulz with regard to the limitation of managerial salaries.
Vassiliadis thus became the first trade union leader to distance himself from the SPD, which demands that top management salaries be capped by the annual general meeting.
Since joining IG CPK, Michael Vassiliadis has held numerous voluntary positions at local, state and national level.
From March 2004 to October 2009, he was a member of the executive board of IG BCE and during this time was responsible for works councils, education, youth and shop stewards/local groups.
The foundation cited ‘the successful structural change through the process of the socially acceptable exit from coal mining’ as the reason for the award.
