"If we want to shape the transformation of our working world and society in a fair way, we can only do it with and not against the workers. Then we need more democracy in the world of work. Co-determination in the supervisory board is an important advantage that we must use offensively. After all, it is not least about decisions to secure German locations. Employees have a say in this," said the DGB chairperson.
The erosion of corporate co-determination is an attack on the model of an economic order with social responsibility and democratic organisation. Therefore, Fahimi warned: "The loopholes to avoid corporate co-determination must finally be plugged. And care must be taken to ensure that no new loopholes are created."
But this is precisely the danger that now exists when the European Conversion Directive is transposed into German law. This is because the draft bill on the implementation of the Transformation Directive presented by the Federal Ministry of Justice in April 2022 has so far failed to adequately protect German co-determination if, for example, a formerly German GmbH wants to adopt the legal form of another EU country. In such a case, the German registry courts would have to examine, in accordance with the EU Directive, whether the company is carrying out the cross-border conversion for abusive purposes, which would include the abusive circumvention of German co-determination laws.
"However, the draft bill lacks the decisive specifications for precisely this examination," said the DGB leader. "In their coalition agreement, the traffic light parties have committed themselves to preventing the circumvention of existing co-determination laws. I therefore call on Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann to follow up these announcements with deeds and significantly improve his draft bill."