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Employee representation only works collectively
Photo: Sebastian Kahnert / picture alliance / dpa
It only works together: chairmen of the works council cannot conclude a company agreement on their own.
If an agreement is reached in this way, it is also ineffective if the remaining works council members would have allowed the chairperson to do so, the judges at the Federal Labor Court (BAG) in Erfurt decided (file number: 1 AZR 233/21).
According to the Works Constitution Act, the works council always acts as a »collegiate body«.
The plaintiff is an industrial mechanic in a steel company in the Wuppertal area.
The chairman of the works council there signed a works agreement in 2017 that replaced the previous remuneration system with a new one.
Instead of 3824 euros, the industrial mechanic now only received 3624 euros.
A works council forms a »common will«
He didn't agree with that.
On the other hand, he complained that the works agreement had only been confirmed by the works council chairman and not by the entire works council.
The BAG has now followed suit.
A works agreement is only effective if it has been confirmed – at least retrospectively – by a resolution of the works council.
In justification, the Erfurt judges explained that the works council was a “collegiate body” that formed “its common will through resolutions”.
A statement by the chairman that is not covered by such a resolution could therefore “have no legal effect”.
In the lower courts, the Wuppertal labor court and the Düsseldorf regional labor court had said that the company agreement was at least effective according to the principles of the so-called apparent power of attorney.
In this case, this means that the works council allowed the chairperson to act either by sight or negligently, and the employer was entitled to assume that the chairperson acted on behalf of the body as a whole.
The Federal Labor Court did not agree.
So that employers have security, they can ask the works council for a copy of the part of the minutes of the meeting that shows the works council's approval of a works agreement, the BAG ruled.
In this specific case, the Wuppertal labor court is now to make a new decision on the wage demands of the industrial mechanic.
flg/AFP/JurAgentur