Regional Labour Court Lower Saxony · 8th Chamber
Delay the new election, lose the conciliation committee
Decision of 24 March 2025 · case no. 8 TaBV 85/24 · § 2(1), § 13(2) no. 2, § 16, § 22, § 43(1), § 87(1) no. 6 BetrVG; § 242 BGB; § 100 ArbGG (document management system)
Key finding: After a series of resignations had reduced it to two members, the works council continued in office only under § 22 BetrVG – with comprehensive authority to conduct current business, co-determination under § 87 BetrVG included. Where it relies on that formal legal position to demand a conciliation committee (here: a works agreement on a document management system) while at the same time deliberately delaying the immediate appointment of an electoral board, the court treats this as an abusive exercise of rights: the trigger for a new election arose on 9 September 2024, the first step followed only on 7 October 2024 with a deadline for volunteers running to 25 October, and a functioning electoral board existed only from 18 December 2024. In the 8th Chamber's view the only appropriate sanction is to dismiss the application as unfounded – dissolution proceedings under § 23 BetrVG do not suffice, because they would not stop the outgoing council from pressing further co-determination rights while the election remains stalled. Two aggravating factors: in practice the chairman acted alone, and in roughly 18 months at most one works meeting was held (§ 43(1) BetrVG). Co-determination is preserved because the newly elected works council may take up the same subject matter later – if need be all the way into a conciliation committee (lower instance: Labour Court Osnabrück, 4 BV 13/24, reversed).
Practical relevance: In appointment proceedings under § 100 ArbGG only manifest lack of jurisdiction normally counts – here the court opens a second, substantive line of defence via § 2(1) BetrVG and § 242 BGB, expressly confined to particularly serious and narrowly limited exceptional cases. A rump works council should therefore set the new election visibly in motion before pushing subject matters into a committee; an employer wishing to invoke the objection needs a complete timeline of the delay.
Source: NI-VORIS – Lower Saxony legal information system →
Regional Labour Court Hesse · 16th Chamber
A collective agreement can give the conciliation committee jurisdiction – even without a statutory co-determination right
Decision of 2 February 2026 · case no. 16 TaBV 18/25 · § 76, § 99, § 21a BetrVG; § 1(2) TVG; § 256(1) ZPO (memorandum note to the Hesse wholesale/publishing pay agreement)
Key finding: A memorandum note to the Hesse pay agreement provides that an editor’s regrading "must" be reviewed after five years of continuous service and that, if no regrading follows, "the conciliation committee decides in accordance with the Works Constitution Act". The Hesse Regional Labour Court reads this as a binding substantive collective norm, not a mere aid to interpretation: the parties to a collective agreement may extend the works council’s participation rights beyond the statute, so the committee here has mandatory jurisdiction – it sits upstream of co-determination under § 99 BetrVG without interfering with that procedure; "conciliation committee in accordance with the Works Constitution Act" refers to the committee under § 76 BetrVG. By contrast, the principal application – to have the committee’s own finding of no jurisdiction declared invalid – was inadmissible: decisions in which a committee affirms or denies its jurisdiction create no legal relationship; only the existence of the co-determination right can be settled by the courts with binding effect. The proceedings were nonetheless admissible: the works council elected in 2025 is the functional successor of the joint-operation works council whose transitional mandate (§ 21a BetrVG) had been extended. Appeal on points of law was allowed (lower instance: Labour Court Frankfurt am Main, 5 BV 159/24).
Practical relevance: Before asking "is there a statutory co-determination right?", it is worth reading the applicable collective agreement including its memorandum notes – it can open the door to a conciliation committee where the BetrVG itself provides none. And anyone wishing to challenge a committee’s ruling on its own jurisdiction should apply from the outset for a declaration on the co-determination right; attacking the jurisdictional ruling itself leads nowhere.
Source: LaReDa – Hesse state case-law database →
Regional Labour Court Rhineland-Palatinate · 6th Chamber
Above-tariff allowances: "purely individual deals" does not block the conciliation committee
Decision of 2 December 2025 · case no. 6 TaBV 7/25 · § 100(1) sent. 2 ArbGG; § 74(1), § 87(1) nos. 10 and 11 BetrVG
Key finding: Where an employer bound by a collective agreement pays above-tariff allowances to roughly 15% of the workforce – almost exclusively managers – a conciliation committee on company pay structures is not manifestly without jurisdiction. The objection that every allowance rests on a purely individual decision must be substantiated case by case; a blanket assertion is not enough – all the more so because the reasons the employer itself gave (attracting applicants, retaining employees minded to leave, protecting pay after a downward transfer) point to abstract, general criteria and therefore to a collective set of facts. The subject matter may be framed broadly; in the appointment proceedings the works council need not state the content of the arrangement it seeks. The duty to negotiate first was also met – the written refusal to accept any co-determination right entitled the works council to treat negotiations as having failed – and jurisdiction of the central works council was not manifest precisely because the employer denied that any general arrangement existed (lower instance: Labour Court Koblenz, 4 BV 5/25).
Practical relevance: An employer seeking to fend off the appointment with "nothing but individual arrangements" must set out, for each case, the particular circumstances and the absence of any inner link to other employees; blanket submissions regularly lead to the committee being established, since the real examination of jurisdiction is for the committee itself. A side note worth keeping: the court corrected the chairman's misstated official title in the operative part – a reason to name the desired chair carefully in the application.
Source: landesrecht.rlp.de (Rhineland-Palatinate state law portal) →
Regional Labour Court Düsseldorf · 12th Chamber
Mobile work: the employer determines the level of co-determination
Decision of 21 January 2026 · case no. 12 TaBV 66/25 · § 100 ArbGG; § 87(1) no. 14, § 50 BetrVG
Key finding: Where models of mobile work are offered uniformly across the company, the central works council is not manifestly without jurisdiction; the conciliation committee is established at that level. Because mobile work is a partially co-determined matter – the employer decides freely on the "whether", only the "how" is co-determined – the employer's choice of a company-wide arrangement also determines the level of co-determination and thus the competent body. The arrangement is a single subject matter and may not be split across several levels; individual home-office agreements already concluded do not create jurisdiction for the local works councils. The court raised the number of assessors to three per side (lower instance: Labour Court Düsseldorf, 15 BV 172/25).
Practical relevance: An employer who offers mobile work uniformly across the company must also negotiate at company level – the objection "that is for the local works councils" will usually fail. For the conduct of the proceedings: settle the level of jurisdiction early and do not artificially divide the subject matter.
Source: NRWE case-law database, North Rhine-Westphalia →
Labour Court Düsseldorf · 9th Chamber
Who gets the chair: the court is not bound by the application
Decision of 22 May 2025 · case no. 9 BV 68/25 · § 76(2) sent. 2 BetrVG; § 100(1) sent. 6 ArbGG; § 87(1) no. 7 BetrVG
Key finding: When appointing the chair of a conciliation committee the court is bound neither by the application nor by the parties' nominations; it selects at its proper discretion, taking the wishes of both sides into account. Rejecting a particular person need not be reasoned short of abuse of rights – but blanket reservations (here: against "professional" mediators) carry little weight. After the chair previously agreed had resigned and numerous enquiries to serving and retired labour judges came to nothing, the court appointed the former labour judge proposed by the works council and set the number of assessors at three per side.
Practical relevance: Anyone wishing to block a proposed person should raise concrete, person-specific objections – general reservations against "professional chairs" rarely prevail against the requirement of expedition in § 100(1) sent. 6 ArbGG. The decision also shows how scarce available chairs have become.
Source: NRWE case-law database, North Rhine-Westphalia →
BAG · 1st Senate
An incompletely transmitted award is invalid
Decision of 20 May 2025 · case no. 1 ABR 11/24 · § 76(3) sent. 4 BetrVG (transmittal); § 76(5) (discretion); § 87(1) no. 10 BetrVG
Key finding: A conciliation committee award is invalid if the version transmitted to the parties by the chair is incomplete compared with what the committee actually resolved. The Senate also confirms the standard of review of discretion (§ 76(5) sent. 4 BetrVG): an error only exists where the arrangement fails to reflect an appropriate balance of interests in its result.
Practical relevance: Careful, complete minutes and transmission of the award are among the chair's central duties – a transmission error can invalidate the entire award. This is a focus of my conduct of proceedings.
Source: bundesarbeitsgericht.de →
BAG · 1st Senate
Limits of jurisdiction: no award without enforceable co-determination
Decision of 23 Sept 2025 · case no. 1 ABR 20/24 · § 87 BetrVG; opening clause in a collective agreement
Key finding: A committee award on additional leave for long-serving employees is invalid where the underlying collective-agreement norm is merely an opening clause and confers no enforceable co-determination right on the works council. Without enforceable co-determination the committee lacks regulatory competence.
Practical relevance: Before and during the procedure it must always be checked whether the matter is subject to enforceable co-determination at all – otherwise the award cannot stand.
Source: bundesarbeitsgericht.de →
LAG Cologne · 9th Chamber
The right level: group works council competent for group-wide requirements
Decision of 28 Jan 2025 · case no. 9 TaBV 89/24 · § 100 ArbGG; § 58 BetrVG
Key finding: Court establishment of a conciliation committee (§ 100 ArbGG) fails where the subject matter is prescribed group-wide (here: a uniform staff questionnaire set by group requirements). A regulation at company level is then "subjectively impossible"; the group works council is competent (§ 58 BetrVG).
Practical relevance: Before establishment, the correct level under works constitution law (works, central or group works council) and the actual scope for regulation must be clarified.
Source: NRW justice portal →
LAG Rhineland-Palatinate · 5th Chamber
Access to the committee: no excessive demands on the requirement to negotiate
Decision of 10 Oct 2024 · case no. 5 TaBV 15/24 · § 100 ArbGG (legitimate interest)
Key finding: The legitimate interest for establishment already exists where a party assumes, not manifestly without basis, that further negotiations would be unsuccessful. No excessive demands may be placed on the requirement to negotiate; a genuine willingness to negotiate is lacking where a party, despite extensive information, avoids engaging with the substance.
Practical relevance: A party cannot block the procedure indefinitely with the blanket argument "we still lack information".
Source: dejure.org (LAG RLP, official text; NZA-RR 2025, 91) →
LAG Cologne · 9th Chamber
"Whether" and "how": no manifest lack of jurisdiction for an attendance bonus
Decision of 20 May 2022 · case no. 9 TaBV 19/22 · § 87(1) no. 10 BetrVG; § 100 ArbGG
Key finding: The conciliation committee is not manifestly without jurisdiction for shaping an attendance bonus. Decisive is the distinction between the "whether" of a voluntary benefit (not enforceable) and the "how" of its design (co-determined, § 87(1) no. 10 BetrVG). The committee may decide on the modalities – it cannot oblige the employer to grant the benefit.
Practical relevance: A classic of the jurisdiction test – with voluntary benefits, the design is co-determined, the basic decision on the "whether" is not.
Source: NRW justice portal →
BAG · 7th Senate
Remuneration of an external committee assessor (Section 76a)
Order of 19 November 2019 · Ref. 7 ABR 52/17 · Section 76a BetrVG; Section 315 BGB
Key point: An external assessor has a statutory claim to remuneration under Section 76a(3) BetrVG (subject to valid appointment and acceptance). If the assessor sets an inequitably high fee, the employer is not in default – the costs of enforcing the fee are then not recoverable as default damage.
Relevance in practice: Assessor remuneration follows the standard of equity (Section 315 BGB) – excessive fee demands carry their own cost risk.
Source: bundesarbeitsgericht.de →
BAG · 7th Senate
Remuneration of the committee chair in insolvency
Order of 11 December 2019 · Ref. 7 ABR 4/18 · Section 76a BetrVG; Sections 55, 209 InsO
Key point: The remuneration of a conciliation-committee chair whose procedure only concludes after the opening of insolvency proceedings is an estate liability (Section 55(1) no. 1 InsO) – not a mere insolvency claim. The claim arises only when the procedure concludes.
Relevance in practice: Clarifies the insolvency ranking of the chair's remuneration under Section 76a BetrVG – important for proceedings during a company crisis.
Source: bundesarbeitsgericht.de →
This page provides neutral information on the legal situation. As chair of a conciliation committee I represent neither side – I guide employer and works council jointly to a balanced, legally sound arrangement.