Functional elite (labor law)

In German labor law , the term functional elite refers to a group of employees of a certain occupational group who, organized in a union, have a particularly high fighting strength against large companies because they can seriously disrupt operations through a strike. Functional elites are characterized by the fact that the operation of the companies in which they are employed is unconditionally dependent on their work performance and cannot be replaced by third parties. In the last few years in Germany the members of the functional elite of some industries have come together in branch unions and have successfully achieved considerable improvements in their collective bargaining conditions in labor disputes . In doing so, they deviated from the previously customary branch principle of the large unified trade unions and the principle of collective bargaining .

Functional elites are for example

• Commercial pilots in airlines (branch union Vereinigung Cockpit ),
• Air traffic controllers and workers on the apron ( air traffic control union ),
• Train drivers in railway companies ( Union of German Train Drivers ),
• Hospital doctors ( Marburger Bund ) and
• Contract players in sports clubs (e.g. association of contract football players ).

literature

• Bernd W. Feudner: Collective agreements for “functional elites ”? In: Betriebs-Berater 2007, p. 2459 ff.
• Volker Rieble : Admissibility of the train driver "functional elite" strike. In: Betriebs-Berater 2003, p. 1227 ff.
• Herbert Buchner: The "functional elite" strike - On the limits of the enforceability of sectoral collective agreements. In: Betriebs-Beratung 2003, pp. 2121 ff.