Wages and salaries | Allowances at the Free University remain non-transparent

Darkened: In the technical department of the FU, the staff council can still only have limited access to the salary structure of the employees. Photo: wikimedia/Leonhard Lenz Equal pay for equal work. Is the Free University undermining the principle of pay equity established in the collective agreement through the extensive use of allowances? The staff council wanted to clarify the question and hoped for support from the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court.

The staff council wanted to know to what extent and on what basis the Free University pays its approximately 140 employees in the technical department bonuses to their basic salaries. "We estimate that around 40 percent of the employees in the technical department receive one or more allowances," said the deputy chairman of the staff council, Lukas Schmolzi, during the hearing on Wednesday. In order to prevent speculation, the court should oblige the management of the Free University to publish relevant lists and thus create transparency.

But the court refused. As a court spokesman said in response to "nd" inquiries, the staff council's claim "only amounts to existing documents." However, it could not be clarified in court whether the Free University has the documents required by the staff council or whether it would have to produce them first. »We don't know the FU's personnel technology and don't know whether it is possible to find out at the push of a button which legal sources the department uses when granting supplements. That is the main problem in this case,” said presiding judge Christoph Heydemann.

»But I would be surprised if such financial flows were not documented. The accounting department needs to know why it is paying out which amounts.«

At the same time, he referred to the recent case law of the Bremen and Magdeburg Higher Administrative Courts: "The document is also available and can be created electronically at the push of a button." This should be used more frequently in the future due to advancing digitalization. According to the judge, which data the FU archives and how is “a black box”.

Felicitas Landes, IT officer for the General Personnel Council, said in court that she had no insight into the HR software and therefore did not know which fields and information were listed there. »But I would be surprised if such financial flows were not documented. The accounting department needs to know why it is paying out which amounts.” The FU lawyer objected. The university management told him: "If we do all that, then we'll have a lot of work."

Collective agreements are intended to bring some order to the often proliferation of salary payments. Trade unions want to achieve wage fairness. However, the collective agreement of the states (TV-L), which regulates the working conditions of employees at the FU, provides for a number of surcharges with which the basic payments can be increased. For example, there is an allowance (Section 16 Paragraph 5 TV-L) “for regional differentiation, to cover personnel requirements, to retain qualified specialists or to compensate for higher living costs”. The allowance can be limited and can also be revoked.

The staff council has no right to participate in bonuses like this, which the employer can pay and take back at its own discretion. The question of assignment to the different pay groups is different. According to the decision, it remains impossible for the staff council to verify which of the allowances paid at the FU are derived from the collective agreement, which are granted outside of the collective agreement and whether there are other agreements that grant allowances not in individual cases but systematically. The legal process has been exhausted.

The deputy chairman of the staff council, Schmolzi, said in court: “An employee in the short-staffed technical department was given a temporary job for seven years. He received an allowance for this.” Paragraph 14 TV-L stipulates that employees who are temporarily assigned higher-level work receive an allowance for this. It compensates for the difference to the salary that would be paid in the higher salary group if it were permanently transferred.

Schmolzi said that for longer tasks there was the possibility of regrouping according to the “comprehensive pay scale”. However, a regrouping can no longer be reversed so easily. According to Schmolzi's statements, the FU's bonus practice leaves its mark on the workforce: "We are told that employees are refraining from taking part in strikes in order not to endanger the payment of the bonus."

This article cost you nothing. Us: research, production and technology. We saved on office rent as well as on printing and distribution. And we gave up salary. Nevertheless, the calculation doesn't work without you. We need 300,000 euros by the end of the year. You pay what you can, in return we keep writing.

No paywall, no small print, just one goal: that nd stays.