Staff council election

The election of the staff council is the election of representatives of employees in the public service in Germany. In contrast, works councils are elected in private-sector companies .

The staff representatives represent the employees of a department. It is formed through elections . A staff council must be elected if there are at least five eligible voters in a department. As a rule, these elections take place every four years, the procedure is regulated in the respective staff representation laws and the electoral regulations issued for them. The following explanations focus on the Federal Personnel Representation Act (BPersVG). In the state employee representation laws and their election regulations applicable to the institutions of the federal states and the municipalities, partially different regulations apply.

Composition of the staff council

The staff council is composed of the elected representatives of the employees of the respective department. In principle, employees and civil servants each choose their own candidates (group selection). As a result of the TVöD and TV-L and also the social legislation that has been changed in this respect, which ended this distinction, the groups of workers and employees were combined in the laws under the term “workers”. The election regulations are similar to those of the works constitution law, with the exception that the groups vote separately.

The number of representatives for the individual groups must correspond to their share among the employees, provided the staff council consists of at least three members. If a group has no more than five members, it will only be represented if it comprises at least one twentieth of the employees of the agency. Section 17 (3) BPersVG regulates the minimum number of mandates a group is entitled to if it is of a certain size. According to the state laws in Hesse and Lower Saxony, the gender relationships in the groups must also be determined; by listing the election proposals separately and structuring the counting process accordingly, it is to be ensured that candidates of the respective gender are appointed to the staff council.

There is a general staff council for several similar departments in an administration . In some cases, the number of members of a staff council is lower than in the works council of organizations of the same size. The staff council of a department with 250 employees consists of seven people, while a works council in a company of the same size under private law has nine members.

Electoral board

As a rule, the current staff council appoints an electoral board for the elections , this also applies after the resignation of the previous staff council, as it must be active until the new election. The electoral committee consists of three people (chairman and two other members, also called assessors), each with deputies. The appointment should be made in good time so that the new election can be carried out in good time before the end of the electoral period of the previous staff council. This requires a resolution by the full staff council with a simple majority of votes. If no electoral board has been appointed six weeks (in some federal states, e.g. eight weeks in some federal states, e.g. eight weeks) before the end of the term of office, the employees or unions represented in the office must take the initiative and request a staff meeting from the head of the office, who must comply with the application . The assembly then elects the electoral board.

If there is no staff council in a department (e.g. because it has been newly established), the department head immediately calls a staff meeting ex officio, which appoints the electoral committee.

If there is no meeting (e.g. because the head of department does not convene it or no participants appear) or if no electoral board is elected there, an electoral board must be appointed by the head of the department himself at the request of at least three voters or a union represented in the department. In the case of the dissolution of the staff council due to breaches of duty through a court decision, the chairman of the specialist chamber of the administrative court also appoints a new electoral board. If the election of the staff council has been successfully contested, it must be repeated. For this purpose, a new electoral board must be appointed by a staff meeting. Since this electoral board, unlike the one appointed by the administrative court, does not take on a staff council function, there is temporarily a period without staff council until the election of the new staff council.

Electoral notice

The electoral board issues an election notice that is publicly available to the agency, in which the number of employees, the resulting size of the body to be elected, the distribution of mandates among the groups mentioned and the modalities of the election in the respective agencies are specified and, among other things, for submitting nominations within the statutory period ( usually 3 weeks) is called. In some cases, the mandatory written vote (postal vote) is ordered for parts of departments, especially for departments with many locations, shifts or field work. The general arrangement of postal voting for an entire department is not permitted. Postal voting - not even mentioned in the BPersVG itself - should remain the exception (BVerwG, decision of March 3, 2003, ZfPR 2003, 104); therefore the regulators only allow them under certain, clearly defined conditions.

Nominations

Nominations are submitted from among the employees or from the unions represented in the department . In the area of application of the staff representation laws, these are above all the public service unions in the dbb Beamtenbund and Tarifunion and the German trade union federation, the most common of which is the United Service Union ver.di.

Supporting signatures from the electorate are required for the employee's nominations. Depending on the size of the group, one twentieth of the eligible voters in the group, but at least three and a maximum of fifty (in NRW a maximum of 100) voters must sign the nomination. There are two groups of employees: civil servants and employees. The union's nominations only need to be signed by two representatives from that union. In addition, some state employee representation laws contain regulations on the proportional representation of the sexes, which must be observed when drawing up the election proposals.

If only one nomination (list) has been submitted for a group, majority voting (voting of persons) takes place. If several lists are submitted for a group, proportional representation (list election) takes place. In the majority vote, a maximum of as many candidates can be ticked on the ballot as there are mandates in the employee group.

When choosing a list, only the entire list can be ticked. The elections according to the BayPVG in Bavaria can also be cumulative , according to the LPVG BaWü in Baden-Wuerttemberg also variegated .

Election of level representatives

If there is a level representation for the agency ( main staff council , district staff council) because it belongs to a larger state or federal authority or a general staff council because there are other agencies at the same level, the employees elect both the local staff council and the level representation and / or the entire staff council usually at the same time. The election is incumbent on the electoral boards of the respective level (main, district, general electoral board). They set the dates, determine the composition of the staff council to be elected on the basis of the information provided by the local staff councils, issue the major part of the announcement and accept the nominations. After voting, they compile the partial results determined by the local electoral boards for the election of the level representation to form an overall result. The local electoral boards carry out the election in the individual departments (e.g. casting votes) according to the specifications of the level electoral boards.

Eligibility to vote

Eligible to vote in the area of the Federal Personnel Representation Act i. d. Usually all employees who are older than 18 years. In some state employee representation laws, voting rights exist regardless of age or from the age of 16 (Bavaria, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein). The nationality plays no role in the Staff Council elections, but may not employees have been deprived by court decision, the right to vote. In the case of elections under some state staff representation laws, people who are integrated into the agency without being in an employment or civil service relationship are also eligible to vote (e.g. § 4 LPVG Baden-Württemberg, § 5 HPVG Hessen, NPersVG Lower Saxony, LPVG NRW). This can e.g. B. concern (permanent) freelance workers or persons similar to employees according to Section 12a of the Collective Agreement Act .

eligibility

Employees who have been with the agency for a period of time (usually six months) are eligible. In addition, a significantly longer minimum time is widely required, for example in Saxony-Anhalt an employment "for a year in the public service" according to § 14 Abs. 1 PersVG LSA. With regard to these election principles, the individual staff representation laws no longer differ according to the weekly working hours , as was the case until a few years ago. Following a complaint from the EU, most of the laws have been adapted so that part-time employees with low weekly working hours can stand for and be elected. Should such standards still exist in isolated cases, they would be seen as discriminatory, not in conformity with EU law or as null and void. However, in most federal states, employees with decision-making authority in personnel matters cannot be elected. In some cases this also applies to women’s or equality officers, e.g. B. in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Hamburg, Hesse, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Thuringia as well as a target regulation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Schleswig-Holstein.

In the case of secondments and unpaid special leave , the right to vote does not apply after certain periods of time (this varies in the individual employee representation laws, usually after three to six months). In Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and Thuringia, municipal employees have the right to vote despite being seconded to the job center (federal authority). In the leisure phase of partial retirement in the block model, according to the case law of the BVerwG (decision of May 15, 2002, Az. 6 P 8.01), employees lose the active and passive right to vote from the first day of leave.

Voting

The election itself takes place through personal or written voting ( postal vote ). It is secret in accordance with the principles of electoral law that also apply to political elections. The counting of the votes is publicly carried out by the department and the result is to be announced in the department by a notice board. In addition, it has recently become common practice to announce this in the department's intranet. The deadline for a possible contestation of the election is only set in motion by the written announcement by posting.

Constituent meeting of the new staff council

As a rule, within one week of the announcement of the election results, the electoral board must invite the elected staff council members to a constituent staff council meeting, which, depending on the applicable law, is chaired by the electoral board until an election officer or a chairman is elected by the staff council. The subject of this constituent meeting is the election of the chairperson of the staff council and the deputy chairperson (or the board of directors). Despite the constitution of the new staff council, the existing staff council remains in office until the end of its term of office and is responsible for matters that require participation. In practice, it is possible for the previous staff council to resign after the new staff council has been constituted.

Election contestation

At least three eligible voters, a union represented in the department or the department manager can contest the election at the administrative court within a period of twelve working days (according to state law in North Rhine-Westphalia within 2 weeks from the date of the announcement of the election result) if there are essential regulations the right to vote, eligibility or the electoral procedure has been violated and no correction has been made. This does not apply if the election result could not be changed or influenced by the violation.

Dates of staff council elections

In most federal states, staff council elections take place in the first half of the year (April - May). Which calendar year is chosen differs in the individual federal states.

Next election dates:

Area of the Federal Personnel Representation Act : 2020. Due to the corona epidemic, the possible term of office of the staff councils in the federal agencies was extended to March 31, 2021 by a new § 26a BPersVG. Where elections have not yet been made in the regular period from March 1 to May 31, 2020, this can be made up for by March 31, 2021 at the latest. If a newly elected staff council is constituted during this time, the term of office of the existing one ends.

Area of national employee representation laws :

Baden-Württemberg: 2024, electoral term five years
Bavaria: 2021, electoral term five years
Berlin: 2020, electoral period four years
Brandenburg: 2022, electoral period four years
Bremen: 2020, electoral period four years
Hamburg: 2022, electoral period four years
Hesse: The 2020 date was canceled by the Hessian state parliament on March 23, 2020. A new date will be set by the Ministry of the Interior by the end of May 2021 at the latest. The existing staff councils will remain in office for this long. Four-year term
Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: 2021, electoral period four years
Lower Saxony: 2020, electoral period four years
North Rhine-Westphalia : regular 2020, electoral period four years. Staff councils elected for the term ending June 30, 2020 remain in office until a new election, at the latest by June 30, 2021.
Rhineland-Palatinate: 2021, electoral period four years
Saarland: 2021, electoral period four years
Saxony: 2021, electoral term five years
Saxony-Anhalt: 2020, electoral period five years. In 2020, the elections were postponed until December 4, 2020 at the latest. The incumbent staff councils will remain in office until December 31, 2020 at the latest. As far as the 2020 elections have already taken place and the result has been determined, nothing will change. (Law to postpone staff council elections of April 8, 2020)
Schleswig-Holstein: 2023, electoral period four years
Thuringia: 2022, electoral period five years (amended by law of June 8, 2019)

literature

Wolf Klimpe-Auerbach: Guidelines for Staff Council Elections: A guide for elections under the Federal Staff Representation Act. 3. Edition. Frankfurt am Main 2015, ISBN 978-3-7663-6493-7 .

Gerlind Wisskirchen, Thomas Stühm: Staff council elections North Rhine-Westphalia. Heymann, Cologne et al. 2004, ISBN 3-452-25790-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

↑ § 4 NPersVG Lower Saxony
↑ § 5 LPVG NRW
↑ Art. 13 and 14 BayPVG

[1] § 4 NPersVG Lower Saxony

[2] § 5 LPVG NRW

[3] Art. 13 and 14 BayPVG