There are a number of legal pitfalls in works council elections. The past election at Porsche was now an issue in court. A serious allegation was cleared up – but the matter is not yet off the table.
Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) – According to the Stuttgart labor court, there was no evidence of manipulation in the works council election at Porsche. However, it remains to be clarified whether around 100 employees from the Porsche gastronomy at the Leipzig location wrongly voted for the works council at Porsche Zuffenhausen, Ludwigsburg and Sachsenheim, said the presiding judge Michael Büchele at a hearing on Thursday. “That’s the only thing we really need to clarify – with the rest we don’t see any grounds for dispute at all.” Another date is planned for the end of the year.
Several employees wanted to challenge the March ballot in court. 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. Büchele saw no evidence for any of these points.
The almost 100 employees in Leipzig belong to Porsche Dienstleistungs GmbH, which is responsible for the canteens, among other things. Actually, the law wants an on-site representation – with several hundred kilometers away, care is not guaranteed, said Büchele. A separate works council was elected for the actual plant in Leipzig.
Because of a similar constellation, Büchele had already declared the 2018 works council election at Daimler to be ineffective. The process then went through the courts for several years. Büchele suggested that the plaintiffs reconsider their application once the allegations of manipulation had been eliminated. In general, nobody is to be envied who has to hold a works council election with all its legal pitfalls. “I would wish that a federal election would be examined so closely,” said Büchele.