BERLIN — Businessman Jorg Ziegler depends on teen-age apprentices to sustain the Berlin bookbinding company that has been in his family for 102 years.
"Without apprentices, we don't have any specialized people," Ziegler says. "Specialists are vital to the quality and speed of our work."
The company constantly has four or five apprentices working in its bindery. After the three-year apprenticeship, nearly all trainees are offered permanent jobs.
Cornelia Voelker, a third-year apprentice at the company, has always wanted to be a bookbinder. "This was my dream job," she says. Voelker spends four days a week working in the bindery and one day at a state-run vocational school.
According to government regulations, Ziegler pays his apprentices a training wage that gradually increases during the three years. At the end of that period, Voelker will be required to demonstrate her skills through a written and practical national examination. Then she will be qualified to work as a bookbinder anywhere in Germany and will earn three times the training wage.
Although Voelker is under no obligation to continue working for Ziegler after her apprenticeship, she hopes to perform well enough to receive a job offer. "I'd like to stay here as long as possible," she says.
During the United States presidential campaign, President-elect Bill Clinton frequently referred to Germany's centuries-old "dual system" of worker training as a model for the United States. He is in favor of a national youth apprenticeship system and has pledged legislation providing $2 billion a year to apprenticeship programs in the United States.
"We are surprised and pleased at American interest in our vocational-education system," says Friedrick Plickert, an official at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce in Berlin. All German companies must pay dues to either this body or the Chamber of Trade and Craft. The two bodies oversee apprenticeships and enforce federal training standards set by business, labor unions and the government.
Germany's dual system of work- and school-based training grew out of medieval craft and trade guilds. "It has a longstanding tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages here in Germany," explains Plickert. "Everybody is familiar with it, and it wasn't very difficult to keep it up through the centuries."
