Mental Health Assessments Must Fix Conditions, Not Workers, as German Works Council Rights Enter New Territory
04.06.2026 - 08:05:23 | boerse-global.de
Psychosocial risk evaluations are meant to improve workplace environments, not to pass judgment on individual employees. That was the core message from roughly 500 attendees at a livestream event on June 2, 2026, organized by the Federal Association for Occupational Safety and Health (Basi). The discussion signals how employee representation bodies are wrestling with an era of digital surveillance and cross-border operations.
Learning management systems (LMS) have emerged as a flashpoint. Labor lawyers now argue these platforms fall under mandatory co-determination because they qualify as technical installations capable of monitoring performance and behavior. Any LMS rollout requires negotiations over data collection, evaluation methods, access rights, and deletion deadlines — areas where works councils must secure veto powers.
The Bundesarbeitsgericht (BAG), Germany’s highest labor court, has meanwhile widened the territorial reach of such rights. In a landmark decision handed down in early June 2026, the BAG ruled that a works council election at the Berlin-Brandenburg airport (BER) for a Maltese airline with about 320 local staff is lawful. The reasoning: even a rudimentary on-site leadership structure — a base captain or supervisor — satisfies the territoriality principle. A cross-border context does not automatically void German co-determination rules.
A separate BAG ruling from May 2023 remains pivotal: dissolving a works council is forbidden as long as the body still holds a residual mandate. That protects co-determination rights during the wind-down of an operation, though individual council members can still be expelled for serious breaches of duty.
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Meanwhile, training has become a strategic battlefield. At the 18th Continuing Education Day in Vienna on June 1, 2026, fresh data landed: 68 percent of companies attach growing importance to workforce development, and 80 percent view it as a critical competitive lever. Digitalization and artificial intelligence top the list of topics at 68 percent, prompting 31 percent of firms to increase their training budgets.
On the union side, demands are escalating. An international seminar in Vienna from May 19 to 21, 2026, brought together European trade unionists to discuss a “just transition” to a climate-friendly economy. The centerpiece was a European Parliament resolution calling for a right to further training during working hours.
A string of court decisions from 2025 continues to shape the legal playbook for works councils. In August 2025, the BAG clarified the scope of damage claims by council members, drawing sharp lines between minimum-wage guarantees, hypothetical career expectations, and contractual entitlements.
A November 2025 ruling addressed equal treatment: salary increases granted only to employees with new contracts are unlawful if other workers had already updated their agreements. The plaintiff in that case received back pay of €148.81.
The Hamburg Regional Labor Court added a procedural twist in July 2025. A simple registered letter with delivery confirmation does not suffice as proof that an employee was invited to the betriebliches Eingliederungsmanagement (return-to-work process). The court noted that scan-based tracking occurs before actual delivery, so it cannot create a presumption of receipt.
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Union politics are heating up as well. Ver.di leader Frank Werneke has staked out firm positions ahead of a June 10, 2026 meeting with Chancellor Merz. The union chief threatened protests if social reforms touch the right to strike, protection against dismissal, or the pension level.
In North Rhine-Westphalia, the education union GEW has renewed its leadership. Chairwoman Ayla Çelik was confirmed in office at an Essen conference with 96.9 percent of the vote. The union, representing about 46,000 members, is pushing for more staff and democratic participation across the education sector.
