During the election campaign for the Dahlem staff council, ver.di members came to us with a request to provide information about the “Free Independent Civil Servants/Employees” list. That’s what we want to do here.
According to its own information, “FUBB” sees itself as a “union-independent” list, which does not mean that they want to be independent together with the unions, but rather independent from the unions.
The propagated independence from unions in staff council work is not in the interests of the employees. In § 2 of the Personnel Representation Act, the legislator stipulates that trade unions support staff councils in their work. Cooperation is expressly intended, e.g. if the collective agreement must be enforced in your favor.
The “union-independent” list “FUBB” essentially consists of staff council members who have publicly distanced themselves from ver.di’s goals. The “union-independent list” received support from several department heads in the central university administration, including the Head of the Division Finances and the Head of the Technical Department. This was announced at a public meeting of the electoral board.
Can employees still rely on having an independent staff council if an employee from the legal office, the office manager of the technical department and the employee responsible for basic issues of job evaluation want to be elected in the staff council and receive support from department heads?
We believe that a conflict of interest is inevitable if the important balance of interests between a genuine representation of the interests of employees and representatives on the employers’ side is lost.
We, the ver.di – Open List, are independent from employer interests, but not from the unions, with good reason.
Voting stations for the PRD-Election