OT membership

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OT membership ( O teeth T arifbindung) referred to in Germany's membership of an employer without collective bargaining coverage in an employers' association .

The OT membership was created as an alternative form of membership in addition to the normal membership with collective bargaining coverage in employers 'associations eligible for collective bargaining , so that employers can benefit from the mere services of the employers' associations without having to become a party to the collective bargaining agreement themselves.

An unconditional prerequisite for the admissibility of OT membership is that OT members, based on the association's statutes, have no influence on collective bargaining issues that the association perceives for members with collective bargaining; this can be achieved in two ways:

  • OT membership can be brought about through the so-called sharing model. In addition to the general employers' association, which performs the general service tasks, another (sub) organization is created that takes on the collective bargaining policy. The employers' association itself has no collective bargaining authority. Only the respective (sub) organization is responsible for the tariff and must also be able to pay tariffs itself. In the absence of membership rights, OT members have no way of influencing the (sub) organization responsible for the collective agreement.
  • OT membership can be achieved through the so-called tiered model . For this purpose, the collective bargaining authority within the respective employers' association is restricted by the statutes, so that OT members are not subject to them. The participation of OT members in elections to collective bargaining committees, voting on collective bargaining issues or strike votes on industrial action must be excluded by the statutes. After changing from a normal membership to an OT membership, the respective employer may also have to forfeit corresponding offices.

From the point of view of association law , this form of restricted membership rights is unproblematic and is subject to the statutory autonomy of the respective association (cf. § 35 BGB ). The possibility of creating OT memberships is, however, strongly attacked by some of the literature from a labor law perspective and viewed as legally inadmissible. Particularly in the case of the tiered model, there is fear of a shift in the parity of the parties to the collective bargaining agreement, in that the employers' associations only conclude collective agreements for members with collective bargaining coverage, but at the same time receive financial and non-material support, especially in labor disputes, from OT members. The Federal Labor Court (BAG) is of the opinion that an employers' association is in principle not prohibited from providing a form of membership that does not lead to collective bargaining. Because of the legal effects linked to the collective bargaining agreement, it is necessary that the association membership with collective bargaining is clearly differentiated from the membership without collective bargaining. If the employers' association statutes do not meet these requirements, an employee's lawsuit could be successful in a decided case who had demanded collective rights against the association member who was not bound by collective agreements.

In a decision of December 1, 2010 (1 BvR 2593/09), the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) confirmed the judgment of the BAG, approved the constitutional complaint of a plaintiff not accepted for decision and established some rules.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Federal Labor Court , decision of July 18, 2006, 1 ABR 36/05.
  2. ↑ bundesverfassungsgericht.de , BVerfG approves BAG case law on OT membership in the employers' association