Dispute to the bargaining unit: Ordeal – Tagesspiegel

Dispute to the bargaining unit: Ordeal – Tagesspiegel

00:00 clock by Alfons Frese

The unions do not agree on planned law on the bargaining unit. DGB leader Reiner Hoffmann must seek the lowest common denominator. A difficult maneuver.

With the trade union unity is such a thing. Four years ago the DGB proclaimed together with employers to commit an act of the bargaining unit (“An operation, a union, a collective agreement”), to stop the pork-barrel politics of professional unions. At that time, the project failed at the FDP and the resistance of the federal officials and the doctors’ union Marburger Bund, who saw threatening the existence of small unions. Meanwhile splits the topic the DGB itself from eight DGB unions are three bill submitted to the labor minister Nahles (SPD), because they fear an intervention in the right to strike. Verdi, after all, the second largest labor organization in this country, as well as the teachers’ union GEW and the union Food, Beverages, Restaurants (NGG).

Verdi, GEW and NGG are against

The DGB chairman Reiner Hoffmann explained on Tuesday the opinion of its association to the draft bill. Although all the DGB unions were united in the view that there was no direct intervention in the right to strike; that you have the employers – unlike four years ago – this time wrested. Nevertheless, the three DGB unions feared indirect effects. Verdi boss Frank Bsirske had expressed “grave concerns” two weeks ago, as Nahles had submitted their draft. The law is problematic, since in a “collision of several collective bargaining agreements collective bargaining agreement of the majority is extended to the entire staff.” And that was “undoubtedly an indirect restriction of the right to strike”. The PRO-chairman Marlis Tepe said on Tuesday the bill “undermines the principle that any interference with the right to strike or collective bargaining should be rejected.”

Despite this rejection is the opinion of the DGB, according to Hoffmann’s an opinion all eight unions. This is important because without the backing of the DGB, the government does not make the law. The purpose of the whole, constitutionally highly controversial project is the industrial peace. The bill is the speech that could threaten the established system of collective bargaining collective collisions. Specifically, it deals with the case that in an operating several unions conclude collective agreements for the same group of workers and thereby possibly creating a Überbietungswettlauf with constant labor disputes. Therefore, to apply in the future only the collective agreement the union with the most members. Or the unions form a collective bargaining unit and bargain collectively with employers. Not be covered by the Act are in other businesses with several unions, but in collective agreements for different groups of employees, as at present approximately at Lufthansa. Hoffmann appealed in the context of the union of the GDL train drivers to be understanding with the Railway Union TOE, which belongs to the DGB on the representation of employees in the railways. A corresponding experiment undertaken by the Chairman of the ECG and the GDL on Tuesday together with the personnel director of the web. This should be a basis to create collective bargaining, which could begin later this week.

The DGB leader sees “need for improvement”

The DGB leader stressed despite fundamental consent, a “considerable need for improvement” in the bill to bargaining unit. Among other things, must be clearly defined how to define the operation and the number of union members investigating. It should also be ruled out that unions with dumping contributions or “trial memberships” additional members were able to get the status of the majority union. The general applicability of collective agreements should, as in the construction industry or in the bakery trade are not endangered.

All in all, Hoffmann believes that the bill does not change the right to strike, since this is judge-made law anyway. Accordingly, the question of how the law affects the right to strike and the proportionality of labor disputes, only to be answered when the first cases landed before the labor courts. This will take time. According to the new law Nahles occur “in the summer” in 2015 into force.