Codetermination Act
| Basic data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | Law on Employee Participation |
| Short title: | Codetermination Act |
| Abbreviation: | MitbestG |
| Type: | Federal law |
| Scope: | Federal Republic of Germany |
| Legal matter: | Employment Law |
| References : | 801-8 |
| Issued on: | May 4, 1976 ( BGBl. I p. 1153 ) |
| Entry into force on: | July 1, 1976 |
| Last change by: |
Art. 7 G of April 24, 2015 ( Federal Law Gazette I p. 642, 657 ) |
| Effective date of the last change: |
May 1, 2015 (Art. 24 G of April 24, 2015) |
| GESTA : | I009 |
| Please note the note on the applicable legal version. | |
In Germany, the Codetermination Act guarantees and regulates the admission of employee representatives to a company's supervisory board .
Affected companies
The law covers companies in the legal form of a stock corporation , a partnership limited by shares, a limited liability company or an acquisition and economic cooperative with usually more than 2000 employees , in which the equal representation of the supervisory board is mandatory, i.e. employees and shareholders each delegate half of the supervisory board members. The aim is to reach decisions in the supervisory board based on consensus between employees and shareholders. In case of doubt, the shareholders (shareholders) can decide all votes in the supervisory board for themselves: If there is a stalemate between the employee and shareholder side, the chairman (shareholder side) has double voting rights ( Section 29 (2) MitbestG). In 2008 there were 694 companies in the Federal Republic of Germany which, in accordance with the Codetermination Act, had to form a supervisory board with equal representation.
Committee Chairman
The chairman of the supervisory board is usually only appointed by the shareholder representatives. In a first ballot, the chairman must be elected with a two-thirds majority. If this does not happen, the shareholder representatives elect the chairman and the employee representatives elect his deputy. The preponderance of shareholders is derived from the property rights of the Basic Law .
Employee representatives
The law regulates the election of employee representatives.
The employee side consists of "normal" employees (representatives of the workers and employees), senior executives and a legally required number of union representatives .
Union representatives on the board of directors are proposed by the unions and elected by the company's employees.
Diese Regeln wurden 1977 durch die Erste, Zweite und Dritte Wahlordnung für verschiedene Konzerntypen präzisiert.
Historical development
In 1946, the trade unions demanded representation of the employees on the executive and supervisory boards of the Ruhr groups that were confiscated by the occupying power and destined for unbundling. This requirement was extended to all branches of the economy in the course of the year. It also met with a positive response from entrepreneurs, because they hoped, with the help of the unions, to ward off the feared permanent foreign control over the coal and steel industry.
According to Section 12 (1) MitbestG (old version), a quorum of signatures was initially required to elect delegates for the election of employees to the supervisory board of a company that accounted for ten percent or 100 of the employees entitled to vote. According to the Federal Constitutional Court, the quorum was too high and therefore unconstitutional. The quorum has now been reduced to five percent or 50 of the employees entitled to vote ( Section 12 (1) sentence 2 MitbestG).
The Biedenkopf Commission
In 2005, the red-green federal government, led by Chancellor Gerhard Schröder , set up a commission headed by the former Saxon Prime Minister Kurt Biedenkopf , which was supposed to develop proposals for the future and possible reform requirements for German corporate codetermination and the Codetermination Act.
The federal government under Chancellor Angela Merkel also promised to use the results of the commission as a basis for relevant reforms. The coalition agreement between the CDU, CSU and SPD states:
"Task of the appointed government commission chaired by Professor Dr. It is Biedenkopf's task, based on the law in force, to develop proposals for a modern and Europe-compatible further development of German corporate co-determination by the end of 2006. We will take up the results of the commission - achieved by mutual agreement - and, as far as necessary and advisable, make adjustments to national company co-determination. "
In addition to chairman Kurt Biedenkopf, the commission consisted of three representatives each from the employer and employee side, as well as two neutral scientific members.
At the beginning of November 2006, the employee and employer representatives declared the commission to have failed. There were irreconcilable differences between the two groups on the question of equal representation on supervisory boards . The employee representatives in the commission wanted to adhere to this, while the employer representatives demanded a so-called third parity , in which the employee side would only have occupied a third of the supervisory board mandates. The chairman of the commission, Biedenkopf, and the two neutral members therefore submitted a report by the scientific members of the commission in December 2006 , to which only the statements of the employer and employee representatives are attached.
| person | function | Association / party |
|---|---|---|
| Kurt Biedenkopf | Chairman | CDU |
| Wolfgang Streeck | neutral | Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies |
| Hellmut Wissmann | neutral | President of the Federal Labor Court a. D. |
| Michael Sommer | Employee side | DGB Chairman 2006 |
| Jürgen Peters | Employee side | IG Metall chairman |
| Günter Reppien | Employee side | General Works Council Chairman of RWE Power AG |
| Dieter Hundt | Employer side | BDA |
| Jürgen Thumann | Employer side | BDI |
| Manfred Gentz | Employer side | former CFO at Daimler-Chrysler |
literature
- Harald Fuchs, Roland Köstler: Manual for the election of the supervisory board. Elections of the employee representatives according to the Codetermination Act and the One-Third Participation Act . 4th, revised edition. Bund-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2008, ISBN 978-3-7663-3881-5 .
See also
Web links
- Text of the law
- ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: history of co-determination )
- Current positions of the DGB on corporate co-determination
- The union-affiliated Hans Böckler Foundation for the Criticism of Codetermination, 2004 (PDF; 103 kB)
- Reform proposals from BDA and BDI for co-determination
- Final report of the Biedenkopf Commission
