Existing employment contracts, in-house wage agreements, profit-sharing - motivation for staff
- Where RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG or one of its subsidiaries takes over a public hospitals, the public services collective bargaining system with its BAT-based wage agreements clashes with our system of individual in-house wage agreements with the trade union ver.di. The basics of these agreements, too, were derived from BAT structures some 30 years ago but have gradually been developed and adapted to the conditions prevailing in hospitals. Some 90 % of the terms laid down in the framework agreements are identical throughout the Group, although individually negotiated with the wages council of ver.di in close co-operation with employees’ councils at the subsidiary level. Only this way will qualified and staff-oriented wage structures come into being. Our pension schemes, working-time regulations, income-optimised night-duty allowances and profit sharing schemes for all our staff are way ahead of BAT / BMTG. Our in-house wage agreements eliminate what experts across the country have long identified as a spiralling downtrend. Past efforts to realign the BAT system - and the difficulties this presents - have made their mark on both employers and employees. For us, any intent of tying us down to BAT levels would mean nothing less than an attack on the future of our hospitals, and we are convinced that the great majority of employees’ representatives within RHÖN-KLINIKUM Group (there are employees’ councils at all our subsidiaries) agree with us in this point – even if they’d love to have both the advantages of BAT and the benefits from our in-house wage agreements, at the same time.
- Though agreed with the same trade unions, our in-house wage agreements show differences in details – and that’s how it should be. This is why German law provides a set of binding rules, aimed at cushioning potential negative adjustment effects in cases of take-overs. According to the provisions of Section 613a of the German Civil Code (BGB), the new hospital operator is obliged to take over all rights and obligations from the previous operator and these rights and obligations must remain unchanged for the period of one year from the take-over. This is to make sure that no unpleasant surprises will occur.
- When acquiring a hospital, we always aim to negotiate new in-house wage agreements with the trade unions. Ideally, this should be done as a “prophylactic measure” even before concluding the take-over contract, so that all parties concerned know without any IFS and BUTS what’s going on and what they can expect. Whether we obtain such clarification prior to concluding the contract - or just a “declaration of intention” - depends very much on how far local employees’ representatives are prepared to co-operate.
RHÖN-KLINIKUM’s take-over concept starts from a decentralised approach – it’s insofar similar to our operating concept. Such decentralised approach allows room for participation on the local or regional level but requires just a much willingness to co-operate. What we’ve always seen as being problematic is that employees’ representatives tend to fight privatisation until the very last moment only to find themselves totally unfit for the new challenges that we all face once the transaction is concluded. This is why we opt for early and open discussion – even at informal levels to start with – in order to enable a closer look at our clearly future-oriented wage agreements and their benefits for employees. Your contacts at RHÖN-KLINIKUM are the Group employees’ council or any of the employees’ councils of our subsidiaries, any of the staff or trade union representatives on RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG’s Supervisory Board, and definitely Mr. Gerald Meder (vpers@rhoen-klinikum-ag.com) who is a member of the Board of Management of RHÖN-KLINIKUM AG and responsible for Group labour relations and collective bargaining law.
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