For the three corporatist unions Vereingung Cockpit (aircraft pilots), Marburger Bund (doctors), and DJV (journalists) who made the constitutional challenge to the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) against the ‘single union law’, demanding that the law be suspended until judgment was passed, this ruling represents a setback, but perhaps not a final defeat. On 09 October the Courts at Karlsruhe announced they had rejected the procedural challenge. The Courts recalled that such a decision would constitute a ‘major encroachment’ on the legislator’s competence that could only be justified under extraordinary circumstances, which were not currently evident. The three unions now have to be patient and await the final verdict of the Courts over the actual constitutionality or not of the law and that decision should be forthcoming at the end of 2016. However nothing was said that actually rejects their complaint. The final outcome remains open.
The existence of unions not being called into question. The much controversial ‘single union law’ (Tarifeinheitsgesetz) came into force in July 2015 after several years of intense debate (c.f. article No. 9089 and No. 8564). This law regulated for the very first time the issue of union competition within companies.
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