In the SAP SE works council election, IG Metall won the majority of the votes for the first time.

Together with the list supported by the Verdi services union, which came third in the election, the DGB unions hold a third of the seats on the 45-strong works council.

Nine seats in the body, which is still highly fragmented, go to IG Metall and six to Verdi.

Bernd Freytag

Business correspondent Rhein-Neckar-Saar based in Mainz.

  • Follow I follow

The result is a turning point, as the founders and initially even a large part of the workforce initially resisted a works council and later primarily against the growing influence from outside.

Neither IG Metall nor Verdi can proclaim a "natural" responsibility for the software company, but their share of the vote has continued to rise.

On the one hand, the remarkable election testifies to the obvious dissatisfaction of a number of employees in Germany with the last salary increase of 2.7 percent.

On the other hand, it should be the receipt for irregularities, mismanagement and a veritable mud fight in the previous works council.

The former company chairman is said to have covered up wage fraud by his colleague with manipulated e-mails.

He resigned after the allegations became known and was later terminated by the company without notice.

A second works council member also left the group.

Weak wage increase

In addition to the poor image of the employee representation, the wage increases, which were weak from the employees' point of view, caused resentment.

In a survey by IG Metall, they primarily complained about the way in which salaries are set at SAP.

In contrast to most large companies, wage increases are not negotiated by social partners, but decided by the board of directors.

The fact that the group approved only 2.7 percent on average this year, after 1.2 percent in the previous year, despite high profits, did not increase satisfaction.

Employees in the middle salary brackets in particular feel badly treated.

According to IG Metall, almost two-thirds of the workforce in “income groups” two and three out of five consider their income to be “not at all” or “to a small extent” appropriate in relation to their performance.

In view of the dissatisfaction and the above-average salaries in many areas, IG Metall called for an in-house collective agreement before the election.

The collective bargaining agreement for the metal and electrical industry cannot simply be imposed on the group, since salaries are significantly higher from a certain level.

Of the almost 22,000 SE employees, 43 percent took part in the election.