From the Havel to the Müggelspree

Peter Eisermann
works as a school organization assistant at Flatow Secondary School (“Flatow-Oberschule”) in Berlin-Köpenick. He is employed by the Senate Department for Education, Youth and Family.

Peter Eisermann, born in 1966, is a little tired of starting over. He has done a lot of things in his life, but nothing lasted. Something that may now change, thanks to a Solidary Basic Income position at an elite school of sports in Köpenick.

Berlin has changed a lot over the years, as Peter Eisermann (name has been changed) knows all too well. A native of West Berlin, he grew up on Zillestrasse in Charlottenburg. As a young man, he watched the Berlin Wall come down and the historic upheavals as the German Democratic Republic collapsed. And in the years that followed, he got to experience first-hand what this meant for the city’s labor market – in good times and bad.

Outlining Eisermann’s professional biography is no easy feat. Over the course of his life, he has not only held a number of jobs but has also worked in a range of different fields; former employers include an event organizer, an operator of photovoltaic plants, and a youth club. Anything as long as he enjoyed his work. “I wouldn’t have taken a job otherwise,” he says. “It makes no sense to do a job that isn’t fun and that you don’t enjoy. It’s not productive, and I don’t take jobs like that in the first place.”

As a child, Eisermann spent a lot of time on the Havel with his parents, at a campsite near the water. Today, he still regularly spends time on the banks of the Havel in Köpenick, where he lives, and is a loyal member of the local fishing club. In Charlottenburg, he attended Johann Peter Hebel Elementary School (“Johann-Peter-Hebel-Grundschule”) and then moved on to Friedrich Ebert High School (“Friedrich-Ebert-Gymnasium”), where he intended to take the Abitur school-leaving exam. The adolescent disliked a lot of things about high school, the “slavish obedience,” the authoritarian attitude of the teaching staff, some of whom expected students to carry their bags. Eisermann wouldn’t play along, rubbed people the wrong way, didn’t want to be the scapegoat, and dropped out of school – without a diploma. “None of it was a good fit,” he says, as someone who today works at a school himself and has observed very different conditions. “It’s beyond comparison, students and teachers today treat each other almost as equals.”

Eisermann obtained his Certificate of Secondary Education later; initially, he embarked on his career without a diploma. He knew his way around stage construction and sound and lighting equipment, as he played in a rock band – many of his colorful tattoos were done during this period. He got jobs working for concert events at renowned Berlin venues, including the Quasimodo, the Theater des Westens, the Deutschlandhalle, and the Waldbühne. After the collapse of the German Democratic Republic, the construction trade was also booming, “and I picked up quite a broad range of manual skills on construction sites,” Eisermann says.

Learning by doing, even without an apprenticeship. But he doesn’t want to be called an “unskilled worker,” even if people without training are often put in that box. “An unskilled worker can’t assemble sound and lighting equipment, and I needed specialized knowledge in construction, as well, whether I’d completed an apprenticeship or not,” he says. “It is challenging, in construction in particular hundreds of people are doing jobs they were never officially trained to do. On the contrary, most people I know who have completed an apprenticeship don’t even work in that field today.”

Once the act on the free movement of workers came into force, things changed drastically in construction. “Suddenly, the focus was on doing things for less and even less,” Eisermann remembers. “It started in the mid-1990s. More and more workers came over from Eastern Europe, and from the former GDR, all willing to do things for half the price.”

“From my point of view, a lot of policies need changing. How we treat each other in this state, for example.

Peter Eisermann

This scabbing was not for Eisermann. Half of the time, experienced workers such as himself, who were used to better wages, were being skipped over; the other half of the time, he withdrew, disappointed by politics. “When it came to looking after municipal greens, for example, the government was always saving, saving, saving. Companies went bust and now the work is done by a few one-Euro jobbers,” he says. “What can you say?” A lot falls by the wayside, Eisermann continues, because the only thing companies focus on is keeping the shareholders happy. “If they’re not satisfied, companies have to start cutting costs, draw upon subcontractors instead of salaried employees. It’s capitalism in its purest form.” Eisermann is convinced: A lot of things need scrutinizing, a lot of things need changing, but politics is not doing enough. “How many members does the German parliament have? Seven hundred? At the end of the day, they don’t have a lot to show for it,” he says. “In theory, these people represent me, but in practice?”

The job center, which pays benefits to and finds jobs for long-term unemployed persons, finally recommended that Eisermann complete an apprenticeship. He seized the opportunity and trained as an electrician around 2000, which led to a change in profession – and location. As a newly minted electrician, he went to Schleswig-Holstein, where many photovoltaic plants and solar power stations were being assembled and put into operation at the time. He worked for different companies in the area for around ten years.

“Then the subventions ran out, and many of the farmers on whose land the plants were often supposed to be built withdrew from the contracts, and there was a huge wave of redundancies,” Eisermann says. Once again, he needed to change direction. As plant construction is physically demanding, Eisermann wouldn’t have been able to do the job until he retired anyway, so he decided to train as an office manager while he was still in Kiel. Qualification in hand, he returned to Berlin.

Back in his hometown, he dedicated his time to the debtors, creditors, and vacation schedules of various companies, working as an office manager for several years, but never staying with the same company for very long. After a recommendation from the job center, he obtained an entirely new set of skills working at a youth club in Köpenick, where he discovered his knack for pedagogy. “Whenever there were problems, I was always pretty much able to solve them,” he says. “Especially when the boys had behavioral problems, I had a real way of talking to them. First you need to find out what’s wrong, why they broke a window, what’s going on with them. In the end, we would fix a racing bike or organize an electric guitar, and things would start to run more smoothly.”

But the job at the youth club was not a regular, permanent position, and so he wound up unemployed again. Based on his recent experience, Eisermann saw his future in civil service. He applied to a slew of jobs, including regular positions as well as those created specifically as part of the Solidary Basic Income (“Solidarisches Grundeinkommen,” SGE) project. After numerous rejections, he finally received a tip from an employee at the Senate Department, recommending that he apply to Flatow Secondary School, which had a vacant SGE position. “So that’s how that happened,” he says. “I’ve been the school’s organization assistant ever since.”

His new working environment is idyllic. Flatow Secondary School is situated on a wooded strip right next to the Müggelspree canal. The students that get accepted at the school have to have been recommended by the State Sports Association (“Landessportbund”); with lessons lasting all day, the school is reserved for the athletic elite and has been tailored to their needs. In accordance with an excellent scholastic education, which allows students to obtain every type of diploma currently offered at schools in Berlin, the talents of children and youths who train at competitive level are advanced in the disciplines crew; canoe racing; soccer; and cycling.

The training requirements set the standard for the school’s organization; Eisermann has supported his new colleagues in this field since December 2020. “We are a large team of fifty people in total” – including teaching staff, educators, and non-educational staff – “and we work well together,” he says. As an SGE employee, Eisermann is neither supposed nor allowed to “take” the work of contractors engaged by the school, nor that of internal janitors or sports officials; however, in light of the school’s specific profile, there is still enough to do.

“A person needs to keep busy and feel appreciated at the end of the day. If that doesn’t happen, he starts to go to the dogs.”

Peter Eisermann

“Being an assistant,” Eisermann explains, “doesn’t mean that I’m fetching pens for everyone.” Depending on which shift he is on, he gets in at 6.30 or 9 in the morning, ready to make sure everyday life at the school runs smoothly for the strained young athletes. “My field of responsibilities touches upon every part of school organization,” Eisermann says. Sometimes chairs and tables need moving for an event, other times the garden needs work; the school premises need keeping clean; occasionally, an alarm will go off without reason and need switching off.

“The job also includes a bit of office work, but I’m used to that,” Eisermann says. He also keeps an eye on the contractors that clean the school, change the light bulbs, and replace the window panes. Sometimes he accepts deliveries of new equipment, other times, he checks the central heating in the basement or patches wall bars. “I’m not directly responsible for the students, but a lot of times, they do come to me when they need something. For example if one of them has forgotten the key to their locker again and we have to help out with a spare key.”

Over the course of his life, Eisermann has done a lot of things, has proven his flexibility and ability to adapt to change; now he would like a bit of permanence. For him, starting over again is out of the question. “I have completed two apprenticeships and can do a lot of things I’m not trained to do. I can work with that, it’ll do,” he says. “Two thirds of my working life are behind me, and once you reach a certain age, you don’t want to have to keep starting over. The willingness to do so declines with age.”

Eisermann effortlessly passed the probationary period. He is hoping for a long-term perspective, either at Flatow Secondary School or in another position in civil service. He has four and a half years left in a working relationship with a decent wage to position himself for just that: “I am very confident that things will take a turn for the better.”

Copy: Katrin Rohnstock / Rohnstock Biografien