His name has become a sort of expletive, just because he headed a government commission that has blown a hole in Germany's cherished social safety net. From January, Hartz IV, the deeply unpopular final phase of the commission's lawmak-ing, will force the rich-but-struggling economy's long-term unemployed to find work or face a new level of (relative) poverty. Every Monday for the past few weeks tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to try to stop the reform. Hartz, the law, is the butt of placards, graffiti and furious letters in the media. Peter Hartz, the man, a mild person by all accounts, is about to face another storm thanks to his day job, as head of personnel at Volkswagen (vw). Germany's biggest carmaker is squaring up for fierce wage negotiations with its employees, represented by the mighty blue-collar union IG Metall.
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