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The cloud software company SAP employs 22,000 people globally. Employees in Germany have been represented by a works council since 2006, as well as employee/trade union representatives in the Supervisory Board. Employees in Israel are unionised with Histadrut.
Works Council
On 23 February 2006, three employees at SAP in Germany initiated the legal process to form a works council.[1] All three of the initiators were members of IG Metall trade union.[2] In a vote held at the "election meeting" on 2 March, 91% of employees opposed the formation of an electoral board, the precursor to forming a works council. German labour law guarantees the right to form a works council, so the three initiators petitioned the Mannheim Labour Court[3] on 5 March to appoint an electoral board.[1] On 14 March,[1] the SAP Supervisory Board responded by organizing another "election meeting" on 30 March, with a group of employees perceived as more distant to trade unions to administer the works council elections, making the court application redundant. Other companies, like IBM already had works councils.[4]
2006 election
On 21 June 2006, 65% of the 10,800 employees of SAP voted amongst 10 different candidates lists fielding over 400 employees in total. A 37 person Works Council was established for the first time, with 16 seats going to Wir für Dich (We For You), 11 seats to MUT[α] and 3 seats each for the lists Die Unabhängigen (The Independent), ABS and Pro Betriebsrat (Pro Works Council) and the remaining seat to TEAM. Four other lists did not receive enough votes to win any seats. The initial 3 colleagues who started the election process were on the Pro Betriebsrat list.[6]
in December, management promoted a unified works council election at SAP Germany. At SAP Systems Integration (SI), separate elections were held at all 6 locations in Germany. In 2008, SAP SI merged with SAP Germany, resulting in a single works council.[1]
2022 election
In the works council election on 5 May 2022, 15 out of 45 seats, or one-third went to the IG Metall and ver.di trade union lists. Both works council chair positions were held by union representatives for the first time in SAP history. Eberhard Schick from the IG Metall affiliated Pro Mitbestimmung (Pro Codetermination) list was elected as chair, and Anne Schmitz of the ver.di affiliated Upgrade list as deputy chair.[7]
Supervisory Board
In 1989, one year after SAP went public, it organised Supervisory Board elections as required under the German Codetermination Act. The two elected employee representatives on the board were Gerhard Maier and Bernhard Koller. In the 1993 elections, the union reserved seats went to the Christian Metalworkers' Union.[1]
Prior to 2014, SAP was legally structured as a German Aktiengesellschaft (AG), with a 16 seat Supervisory Board. In accordance with the Codetermination Act, half of the seats are reserved for the employer, with the remaining eight seats reserved for employees, including two seats for trade union representatives who are typically not employees of SAP.[8]
In 2014 the SAP AG was converted into SAP SE, a European Company (Societas Europaea; SE). Employee representation on the company Supervisory Board is required under the European Union Employee Involvement Directive 2001. Currently, SAP SE (across Europe) has 18 seats, with half reserved for employees.[8]
Court rulings
The German Federal Labour Court referred a question to the European Court of Justice (C-677/20), whether German legislation on trade union representation in Supervisory Boards is compatible with Article 4 of the Employee Involvement Directive, specifically whether distinct elections for employee representatives and trade union representatives must be maintained. The Court Advocate-General agreed that national laws with regards to trade union representatives and electoral procedures remained applicable even after the conversion of an Aktiengesellschaft into a European Company.[9]
A provision in the agreement between SAP and the Special Negotiation Body for the SE Works Council would allow for SAP to reduce the Supervisory Board to 12 seats, of which six are reserved for employees, four in Germany specifically. While trade unions ver.di and IG Metall would continue to be able to nominate representatives, they would no longer be able to hold separate elections as previously done in the German Aktiengesellschaft form.[8]
The Israeli branch of SAP is unionised under the Cellular, Internet and High-Tech Workers Union of the Histadrut trade union federation.[10] A collective agreement signed in 2020 between SAP and Histadrut covers 800 workers in Israel.[11]
- Volkswagen and unions
- Google worker organizations
- IBM and unions
- Unionization in the tech sector
- MUT stands for Menschenverstand, Unternehmenskultur und Transparent (Common sense, Corporate culture and Transparency)[5]
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