Hubertus Heil

As Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Heil has overseen a number of legal measures to strengthen workers’ rights, including a law forcing logistics and ecommerce companies to ensure that their subcontractors pay proper social security contributions for their drivers, and the introduction of a higher basic pension for low-income workers. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, he worked on legislation to give employees the right to work from home even when the coronavirus crisis is over.

At a SPD national convention in 2019, Heil was elected as one of the five deputies of the party’s co-chairs Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans, alongside Klara Geywitz, Kevin Kühnert, Serpil Midyatli and Anke Rehlinger.

In 2005 Heil became general secretary of the SPD. In September 2009, after immense losses for the SPD during the German federal election, Heil announced his resignation from this position for November. Andrea Nahles succeeded him as general secretary in November 2009. After Katarina Barley's appointment as Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, he briefly returned to the office from 2 June to 8 December 2017.

In the negotiations to form a grand coalition under Chancellor Angela Merkel following the 2013 national elections, Heil led the SPD delegation in the working group on economic affairs; his co-chair from the CDU/CSU was Ilse Aigner. Ahead of the 2017 elections, he contributed to the manifesto of SPD candidate Martin Schulz. In the negotiations to form a fourth coalition government under Merkel, he led the working group on education policy, alongside Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Stefan Müller and Manuela Schwesig.

In 2012, Heil proposed a special panel in the Federal Chancellery to help overcome professional skill shortages, comprising representatives of industry, unions as well as the federal labor agency and regional and community associations.

Between 2009 and 2017, Heil served as deputy chairman of the SPD’s parliamentary group, under the leadership of successive chairmen Frank-Walter Steinmeier (2019-2013) and Thomas Oppermann (2013-2017). In this capacity, he was a member of the working groups on energy policy and municipal policy from 2009 until 2013. He was also an advisory member of the Commission for Fundamental Values of the Executive Committee of the SPD, a body led by Gesine Schwan.

In November 2005 the then designated party leader Matthias Platzeck proposed the relatively unknown Heil as candidate for the post of secretary general, after Franz Müntefering had resigned as SPD chairman and the elected secretary general Andrea Nahles did not take office. Heil was elected new secretary general of the SPD, but he received only 61.2 percent of the votes, about 20 percent less than his predecessor Klaus Uwe Benneter. He later served under Platzeck (2005-2006) as well as under his successors Kurt Beck (2006-2008) and Müntefering (2008-2009). During that time, he oversaw the drafting process of the party’s Hamburg Program, which has been the party platform since 2007.

Heil is married to lawyer Solveig Orlowski, who has managed the Berlin office of the Association of Telecommunications and Value-Added Service Providers (VATM) since 2005. The couple has two children, a son (* 2012) and a daughter (* 2014). His brother Georg Heil is a journalist with public broadcaster Westdeutscher Rundfunk. Heil is protestant.

Heil has been a member of the Bundestag since the 1998 German elections, representing the electoral district of Gifhorn-Peine. Between 1998 and 2005, he was a member of the Committee on Economic Affairs. In this capacity, he served as the SPD parliamentary group’s spokesperson for telecommunications and postal services from 2003. In addition to his committee assignments, he was a member of the executive board of the SPD parliamentary group under the leadership of chairman Franz Müntefering from 2002 to 2004.

From 1995 to 1997 Heil was assistant of Heidrun Förster, a member of the Brandenburg State Parliament and in 1998 assistant of Eva Folta, a member of the Bundestag.

Heil joined the SPD in 1988. At first he was active at the Jusos and he was their chairman in the district of Braunschweig from 1991 to 1995. From 1995 to 1997 Heil was executive director of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Arbeitnehmerfragen, a leftist caucus in the SPD, representing the workers' wing of the party, although he was reputed to belong to the undogmatical reform socialist wing during his Juso time.

Hubertus Heil (born 3 November 1972) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who has been serving as Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in the fourth cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel since 14 March 2018.

Heil was born in Hildesheim in 1972 as son of a Studienrat (German for "Educational Councillor"). After graduation in 1992 at the Gymnasium am Silberkamp in Peine, Heil has been drafted for the Alternative civilian service (in German: Zivildienst) and in 1995 he started with his studies in political science and sociology at the University of Potsdam, which he graduated in 2006 at the University of Hagen.