As of: February 19, 2024, 12:00 p.m
By: Elke Robert
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Closing the gap in the Gnettner area: The archive photo from July 2022 shows the last major construction site on today's Lena-Christ-Weg.
© Hans-Helmut Herold
The state labor court has decided: Gnettner employees are not (yet) entitled to the last social plan installment.
Private creditors must first be served.
“We couldn’t have thought it was so shabby 20 years ago; we relied on a reputable businessman,” says Helmut Dinter (IG Metall) angrily.
Schongau - The decision of the Munich Regional Labor Court is 14 pages long, the decision is unappealable.
The former employees of the Schongau company Kurt Gnettner Holzindustrie are unlikely to be satisfied, nor is Helmut Dinter, representative of IG Metall Weilheim.
“I was just with the workforce and explained the verdict – and I saw very frustrated faces,” said the trade unionist responsible for Schongau.
The works council's complaint against the labor court's decision from December 2022 has finally been rejected, meaning that the hope that the third installment of the social plan negotiated more than 20 years ago will be paid out to the former employees or even their heirs in the foreseeable future is gone .
Installments are only due when all liabilities have been satisfied
What is it about?
The core of the dispute is the question of whether all of the company's liabilities, which ceased operations in 2000, have actually been satisfied, whether a profit has been made and whether the last installment of 500,000 marks of the social plan for the employees is due - converted this is around 256,000 euros.
This is not the case, as the judge in the Weilheim Chamber of the Munich Labor Court had already stated.
Obligations to banks and suppliers had already been settled in 2006.
In return, shareholders and family members granted loans.
Liabilities continued to exist – at least until the 2020 annual financial statements.
At that time, only 46 of the 49 properties in the Gnettner area in Schongau were sold.
So around 2.1 million euros were apparently still in the books three years ago.
However, the last installment of the social plan will only be due when all debts have been paid and there is a surplus, as the court again found.
“The labor law track is now over,” summarizes Dinter, and sticks to the accusations directed at his former employer that he acted shabbily.
“It is impossible to mediate between jurisprudence and a sense of justice,” Dinter regrets.
“Gnettner is very lucky that he now has it in black and white that he only has to keep the debt to the family, even if it is only one euro, so that the last social plan installment does not come due.”
Shareholder loans are also loans
The employer side argues that it was never stated that shareholder and family loans would not be taken into account.
The works council was represented by both a trade union and a lawyer when the reconciliation of interests was concluded.
According to the documents from the court, the employers' side clearly shifts the blame towards the employee representatives: the works council intentionally or at least grossly negligently took the risk that the payment of the third installment from the social plan would be delayed indefinitely or not be realized at all let.
Busy construction activity: The Gnettner area in Schongau in an aerial photo from April 2015. © Hans-Helmut Herold
The gap in the Gnetter area will be closed from 2022.
There was also a nasty surprise with the Gnettner area, because upon closer inspection it turned out that the namesake of the last path with undeveloped land was a former Nazi poet.
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Works council in an awkward position
When asked by the Schongauer Nachrichten, Dinter once again recalled the predicament of the works council at the time: he was given the decision by management to agree to a voluntary liquidation of the company or to go bankrupt.
The works council had decided on the former because they thought it was better to have a sparrow in their hand than a pigeon on a roof, said Dinter.
The works council calculated that the first two installments of the social plan would be higher than what the employees would receive in the event of insolvency.
1.2 of 1.7 million marks were actually paid out to the employees.
“But in the event of bankruptcy, Gnettner would also have been liable with his entire private assets,” said Dinter, looking back.
“I blame myself for not having managed to convince the works council to take this route.”
But there still remains a spark of hope for the employees
But there still remains a tiny spark of hope for the former employees.
The subject of the legal dispute was the annual financial statements including the year 2020; according to Dinter, the results for 2021 to 2023 were not yet available to the works council, but have now been requested.
The last gap in the Gnettner area has now been closed and, according to the city of Schongau, all of the land that can be used has been sold.
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