In his last voluntary job, the entrepreneur Stephan Schwarz got to know and appreciate an accomplished class warrior. Frank Bsirske, former Verdi chairman, and the medium-sized company Schwarz were among the most active members of the Working World Council, which was appointed as an advisory body by Federal Labor Minister Hubertus Heil (SPD) almost two years ago.
Last summer, the council presented its first report – and pleaded, among other things, for severe restrictions on mini-jobs. Also the entrepreneur Schwarz, who had been convinced in the previous months that the marginal employment relationships do more harm than good.
Schwarz explained the proposal for the gradual abolition of mini-jobs with their susceptibility to abuse, the costs for the companies, competition-distorting effects and the insufficient bridging function towards regular employment.
After all, the sensitivity to crises became clear during the pandemic: In spring 2020, more than 550,000 mini-jobs had disappeared. The appreciation was mutual: Bsirske was impressed by the ideology-free, clear view of the situation of the entrepreneur Schwarz. In future as Senator for Economics with a broad horizon on Berlin’s economy.
Typically black. Pre-determinations are alien to him, and whether as a Berlin craftsman president or entrepreneur – he has always surprised with unconventional assessments. For example in late summer 2015, when the refugee crisis began to worsen.
“There are no good and bad refugees”
It makes no difference whether someone is an economic refugee or a “real” asylum seeker who has been persecuted, Schwarz told the Tagesspiegel at the time. “I am just as welcome to someone who is looking for a new perspective in life, as is someone from a civil war country,” said the employer, whose company employs more than 100 nationalities. “I find that repugnant in the public discussion: Here are the good refugees and there are the bad refugees.”
Positive reactions from associations
An entrepreneur who thinks socially and has an idea of good work – that’s what Christan Hoßbach, the DGB chairman of Berlin-Brandenburg, likes. Although Schwarz has no administrative experience, he knows the structures and actors in Berlin’s economy, Hoßbach told Tagesspiegel. The trade unionist hopes for new impulses for industrial policy.
UVB General Manager Christian Amsinck is also satisfied with the appointment of Schwarz. With him, a “successful family entrepreneur from Berlin” will take over the position with “many years of practical experience,” says Amsinck. “We hope that he will provide the right impetus so that companies in the capital can successfully cope with major tasks such as digitization and decarbonization.”
The IHK appreciates the social-liberal profile of the new senator: As an entrepreneur, Schwarz is a liberal who is aware of his social responsibility and therefore stands in the tradition of the social market economy, which as Rhenish capitalism stood for a balance of interests in the West German post-war decades. At least that applies to Stephan Schwarz’s company.
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His grandfather Walter Schwarz founded the glass cleaning company (GRG) with two employees in Kreuzberg on February 20, 1920. Apart from the Nazi years and the turbulence after the building of the wall, things went steadily upwards. Windows have to be cleaned regularly, shop windows anyway and so do the glass facades of office buildings. “We have always been in the black and therefore never had to lay off employees for operational reasons,” explains Schwarz, who is the third generation to run the family company. His brother Heiko is responsible for the Hamburg branch.
Focus on employees
In the case of service providers with a wage cost share of at least 80 percent, the importance of the employees is particularly high. In 1970, on the occasion of its 50th birthday, it was said that in addition to technical development and social progress, the “dynamic corporate management” had changed the GRG. “The most important thing, however, has remained the same: the employee.”
And Walter Schwarz has chosen for the employees, then his son Hans-Jochen and then in turn his son Stephan always come up with something. A benevolent fund helps with dentures, for example; Language lessons are offered in the in-house academy and Walter Schwarz once lured Yugoslav workers to West Berlin with company apartments when a third of the workforce disappeared behind the wall in August 1961 and new staff was needed.
Today the GRG provides accommodations in the Passau area for Romanian workers who are used in cleaning hospitals and health clinics. “They only come when there are apartments and we take care of the administrative procedures,” says Stephan Schwarz, who was already active in Berlin’s economic policy almost 20 years ago. In any case, indirectly.
Joint appearance with Wolfgang Clement
The mood in the craft was miserable when Schwarz and Wolfgang Clement performed in the Tempodrom in February 2003. The young Berlin head of the company was celebrated and the Federal Minister of Economics almost shouted from the stage by the angry entrepreneurs. That was how it was back then in a crisis in Germany – ancillary wage costs, bureaucracy and payment ethics made things difficult for the craftsmen.
And the economy anyway. Schwarz spoke at the rally at the invitation of Hans-Dieter Blaese, the President of the Craftsmen in Berlin, and he did his job so well that he succeeded him a few months later. A 38-year-old studied philosopher and historian replaced the 73-year-old Blaese. And that worked wonderfully.
Berlin craft repositioned
Pieful and sluggish, conservative and always a little behind the tree – the widespread image of the craftsmen did not match the young intellectual who did not become a disdainful functionary even in the years in office. It was “a stroke of luck”, says IHK boss Jan Eder about the “human catcher” Schwarz. Eder should know, because the cooperation between the two chambers has never been as intense as it was in the years between Schwarz and Craftsman Jürgen Wittke on the one hand and Eder and IHK President Eric Schweitzer on the other.
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After the sudden death of his father in 1996, Schwarz took over the management of the family business. Together with his brother he developed the GRG services rapidly, in some years 500 people were hired. Today the building services provider employs a good 4200 people.
Trouble with the Senator for Economics
Schwarz also became Vice President of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce – and resigned from this position in 2014 when he disliked Schweitzer’s dealings with the then Senator for Economic Affairs, Cornelia Yzer. Yzer got lost in the dispute over the head of the state-owned Messe Berlin, which falls under the responsibility of the economic administration. The senator wanted to get rid of the chairman of the supervisory board, Hans-Joachim Kamp, and the head of the trade fair, Christian Göke, at the same time.
Eder, also a member of the trade fair supervisory board, positioned himself with Schweitzer at Kamp / Göke’s side. Schwarz then brokered a compromise, about which confidentiality was agreed – which was then broken by Yzer and Schweitzer. Schwarz saw his credibility damaged – and resigned from volunteering at the IHK. The moral compass had failed, and it was probably a question of dignity and decency for him to distance himself from the gimmicks and trickery of Schweitzer.
