Ferat Koçak: Berlin politician fights for workers' rights

Left Party's Koçak challenges Germany's elite with grassroots push in Berlin

The first thing Ferat Koçak does at his neighborhood assembly is apologize. "I'm pretty nervous," he admits after taking his place on stage. "Being held accountable here—that's what really matters. This is where we belong," says the Left Party politician. "This isn't like some speech in the Bundestag." For him, being in Berlin-Neukölln, listening to the people of Neukölln and their concerns, remains his top priority.

With that, Koçak sets the tone. Because the Bundestag, in his view, still feels like someone else's world. "Politicians are a different species," he explains, reflecting on his first year as a member of parliament. "They earn huge salaries, and that makes them lose touch with reality." That's why he would cap his own pay at €2,500 a month and distribute the rest through his constituency office's social fund.

Koçak, who served in Berlin's state parliament from 2021 to 2025, had invited residents to the Sudhaus in Neukölln's Global Village on Wednesday. He wanted to take stock after his first year in the Bundestag and engage with his voters. Following last February's elections, the current Bundestag was sworn in at the end of March. As Neukölln's directly elected representative, Koçak made history as the first Left Party politician to win a purely West German constituency.

He has sharp words for his fellow lawmakers: "They want us to work ourselves sick." The MPs, he tells the roughly 100 people gathered for his neighborhood meeting, "have no clue how to help hardworking people." "No matter where we come from, we all want a good life for ourselves and our families," he says. But with Agenda 2030, he warns, the welfare state is under threat, leading to "a situation Germany has never seen before."

At the same time, he argues, they're tightening police laws and branding those who take to the streets for their rights as extremists—"just look at the Gaza protests." While billions flow to the military, youth services face cuts. "If there are no youth clubs left, what choice do young people have but the armed forces?" he asks. "This is an all-out assault on our lives. We have to turn up the pressure in the streets."

But his real purpose here, he says, is to listen to his voters' "concerns, ideas, and hopes." A handful of people step up to the mic, asking questions ranging from "How much does AI threaten our jobs?" to "What's it like working with your party in the Bundestag?" Koçak responds somewhat vaguely that the party has changed, thanks to its many new, young, migrant, and queer members.

One woman challenges him: "Your argument linking cuts to youth services with military recruitment strikes me as oversimplified." She points out that people in Germany are increasingly under threat—right now, from cyberattacks. "What does 'defense' actually mean, and what do destroyed apartment blocks in Ukraine mean for us here?" she asks. "I need much better answers."

An attendee wants to know how he manages to push multiple issues in a system where, by design, the Bundestag operates as a working parliament with each member specializing in their own field. "I don't just raise these topics in my speeches," Koçak replies. "I bring them up in party group meetings where we shape motions, through parliamentary questions, and by influencing legislation." Addressing the previous speaker, he adds: "War is used to stoke fear." What matters, he insists, is the kind of security people experience in their daily lives—enough money in old age, open youth centers, making ends meet on part-time work, and the right to protest without being attacked.

"It's already tough. But Merz and his allies want to make things even harder," Koçak concludes after about an hour of discussion. Still, he finds reason for hope—wherever people stand together, they can make a difference. "At Neukölln Hospital, staff have gone on indefinite strike to fight for better working conditions," he says. He's confident they'll succeed in the end and recounts how a cleaner showed him her hands. "No one can do a job like this until they're 70," Koçak fumes. "Maybe as a politician, where you just read a bit and shuffle papers around—but that's about it."