Porsche
It is expected that the proceedings will go to the next instance at the regional labor court.
(Photo: dpa)
The Stuttgart Labor Court has declared the works council election at the car manufacturer Porsche to be invalid. The reason for this is that almost 100 employees of Porsche Dienstleistungs GmbH in Leipzig, which is responsible for the canteens, among other things, were not allowed to vote, said the presiding judge Michael Büchele on Thursday.
Actually, the law wants an on-site representation – with several hundred kilometers away, care is not guaranteed. “Due to the in-house collective agreement from 2013, the Leipzig location could not be effectively included in the responsibility of the Zuffenhausen/Ludwigsburg/Sachsenheim works council.” A separate works council was elected for the actual plant in Leipzig.
Several workers contested the March 2022 election. They saw significant violations and argued, among other things, that the ballot boxes were missing seals and that parts of the workforce had been informed too quickly. But Büchele saw no evidence for any of these points. There were no manipulations and no inconsistencies. Such grounds for appeal were not discernible. An amicable settlement had previously failed because three plaintiffs did not accept the court’s proposal.
The decision on Porsche is not yet final. The incumbent works council remains in office for the time being. It is expected that the proceedings will go to the next instance at the regional labor court. Due to a similar constellation with a far-away branch, Büchele had already declared the 2018 works council election at Daimler to be ineffective. The process then went through the courts for several years.
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