Infringement to the WC Act. It all started with an article published on October 15th in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung daily (FAZ) headlined: “Opel bribes employee representatives.” The daily reveals that the management of Opel and Klaus Franz, leader of the central WC, implemented a remuneration system for employees’ representatives that is really far from the principle of voluntary work which applies to WC members and is part of the “Works Councils Act” (Betriebsverfassungsgesetz). A company agreement states that WC members receive monthly lump sums ranging between €300 and €1,300 depending on their position to compensate overtime. However, these aren’t registered anywhere, “to avoid increasing the company’s administrative burden,” Franz explained. This agreement is a “glaring violation of the regulation that states that WC work shall be voluntary” denounced Gregor Thüsing, Labor Law Professor at the Bonn University, who then added that employees’ representatives shouldn’t get any material rewards from their work, otherwise they could be ‘bought’ by employers through extraordinary bonuses. The FAZ then warned, “This is what we can fear at Opel. This system is like the one that was in place at Volkswagen,” where the management paid its WC members luxury trips and prostitutes (see our dispatch No. 080155).
a “glaring violation of the regulation that states that WC work shall be voluntary” denounced Gregor Thüsing, Labor Law Professor at the Bonn University, who then added that employees’ representatives shouldn’t get any material rewards from their work, otherwise they could be ‘bought’ by employers through extraordinary bonuses.
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