Against a backdrop of serious corporatist party opposition, Germany’s grand coalition government has quietly continued with its ‘gentle adjustment’ to the Single Union law that regulates trade union competition within companies. On 30 November the Bundestag adopted this slight correction that is to be introduced in the ‘law in order to bolster life-long training’. In doing so the government is responding to a Constitutional Federal Tribunal injunction, which in a ruling from July 2017 had given the legislature until 31 December 2018 to correct the Single Union law in order to take into account the interests of small corporatist trade unions. On the same day the Bundestag also gave the green light to amending another piece of legislation that will enable flight crews to freely create a works council as of 01 May 2019 (colloquially called Lex Ryanair).
Constitutional Federal Tribunal- conditions. Adopted on 22 May 2015, Germany’s Tarifeinheitsgesetz legislation (Single Union law) has been one of the nation’s most controversial. The legislation means that no single professional group can benefit from different collective agreements negotiated by competing trade unions, and in any dispute situations then the collective agreement that was signed by union with most members within the company is the one that prevails over the other minority union agreements.
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