Law on Collective unit adopted: “a black day for the fundamental rights” – Tagesspiegel

05/22/2015 21:01 clock From Alfons Frese

After about five years of lobbying by the employer decides the Bundestag by a large majority a law which small unions made life difficult. Whether it violates the constitutional freedom of association, soon decides in Karlsruhe.

Five years have proponents start taken on Friday then they took the law on collective unit loose parliamentary hurdle. With the majority of rich grand coalition – 448 MPs for, 126 against, 16 abstentions – approved the Bundestag Act by the Secretary of Labor Andrea Nahles (SPD) submitted to. Employers and IG Metall applauded Beamtenbund and professional unions protested. The law is extremely controversial and perhaps contrary to the constitutional freedom of association. In any case, the Constitutional Court will have to deal with it in the foreseeable future

Beamtenbund:. “Black day for Fundamental Rights”

From a “black day for the fundamental rights” Voices Klaus Dauderstädt, Chairman the federal officials. “. The adopted today regulation violates the constitution, destroyed the industrial peace and drives the trade unions in Germany in a tough competition” a completely different view of the law has employer president Ingo Kramer: “The restoration of the bargaining unit, legal certainty and legal clarity and a further erosion and dismantling of the collective bargaining counteracted. “

Secretary of Labor Nahles was anyway satisfied and expressed his conviction that in the one-hour debate in the Bundestag ‘right of association and the right to strike will not be affected”. Whether that’s true, time will tell. For through the law be difficult under certain circumstances, or even disproportionately labor disputes. The decide soon the labor courts.

The history of the law begins 2008/09. Back then became apparent that the Federal Labour Court would change its case-law, in favor of pluralism and collective bargaining at the expense of the bargaining unit; several unions in a company should be able to conclude collective agreements. The principle of collective unity – an operation, a union, a collective agreement – would be abolished. Long before then in June 2010 decided the Federal Labour Court definitively agreed employer and DGB unions a joint proposal for a law to save the bargaining unit, the employer president Dieter Hundt and DGB leader Michael Sommer submitted the former CDU-FDP government. The argument of the two umbrella organizations: If the example of the train driver and pilot school makes and each profession is cooking their own collective soup, then the strike Republic of Germany goes under. From “English conditions” been mentioned, such as continuous strikes resulting in the deindustrialization. The Chancellor understood the argument and repeatedly said a law – which then but got stuck in the administrative undergrowth

Deal coalition. Minimum wage against collective unit

In the fall of 2013, the project came back to the table. On the edge of the coalition talks between the CDU and SPD agreed employer and trade union representatives, among others, Andrea Nahles and Ursula von der Leyen, a business: one side – unions and SPD – receives the statutory minimum wage and the early retirement after 45 years of insurance, the other side – CDU and employers – get a law on collective bargaining unit. The first part of the agreement has delivered Nahles. On Friday followed part two.

It was a difficult birth, because not only among lawyers, in the DGB, the law is controversial. With sorrow and distress the new DGB chairman Reiner Hoffmann has reached a common opinion of the umbrella organization for the law last year, but with Verdi, the NGG (Food, Beverages, restaurants) and the GEW (teachers) has Hoffmann in-house three Opponents of the law, because they fear a restriction of the right to strike

core of the new regulation is the principle of majority rule. If there are several unions in a factory, the collective agreements for identical groups of employees to complete (tariff collision), then has the future of collective agreement of the largest trade union priority (majority rule). The peace obligation of the major union extends then in addition to the smaller union, so as a result the ability to strike could be restricted.

The railway gives tariff collision

welcomed the IG Metall on Friday the law because “the employee deciding majority only by membership in trade unions, which collective agreement is in operation for use”. By this logic, it would then come to the “fierce competition” between the trade unions, such as the Civil Service Association said as each union will have the majority in the company. In this direction also argues the chief engineer Claus Weselsky. If the law come, the GDL boss, he was forced to expand.

The recent debate on the railways took place in the context of the legislative process. GDL and the significant larger railway union ECG compete, and the train will not enter into various collective agreements for the same occupational group. After Thursday morning Bahn and GDL had agreed on a settlement by 17 June, the negotiations with the EVG were unsuccessful in the early hours of Friday. It was distinguished from a compromise, so that in the coming week, the collective agreement could be.