A former town hall chief from southern Baden is complaining. The reason is an allegedly unfair payment in her old office. A court ordered the municipality to pay damages. Does the fight go on now?
Freiburg/Müllheim (dpa/lsw) - In the legal dispute over her payment, the ex-Maulheim mayor Astrid Siemes-Knoblich (independent) prevailed before the administrative court in Freiburg. Your lawsuit was upheld, the court's press spokesman said on Monday of the German Press Agency in Freiburg.
The former town hall chief of the municipality in the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald had previously claimed damages on the basis of the anti-discrimination law. The city had to pay damages, but he could not say anything about the amount, said the spokesman. He promised a written statement from the court on Tuesday.
The former mayor, who was in office from 2011 to 2019, had seen a case of gender discrimination. Both her predecessor and her successor were classified in a higher salary bracket.
For its part, the city of Müllheim announced that it would examine whether the decision would be contested after the written judgment had been received. The city administration is still convinced that the decision of the municipal council from 2011 to classify "not for reasons of gender discrimination" was made, it said in a statement. "An appeal would lead to the VGH Baden-Württemberg reviewing the factual and legal situation completely again," said Mayor Martin Löffler (SPD).
The former local politician Siemes-Knoblich said last year that there had been comparison talks with the city. However, these were unsatisfactory.
The salary law of the civil service provides that mayors in municipalities with 15,000 to 20,000 inhabitants can be classified in two salary groups: either in the lower group B3 or in the higher B4, as the "Badische Zeitung" reported at the time. The municipal council decides on this. And he decided that Siemes-Knoblich would be classified in B3 - and thus different from its predecessor and also its successor.
As the city of Müllheim has now announced, the municipal council classified the mayor's position in the lower salary group, contrary to the recommendation of the administration. The committee thus ignored the particular difficulty of the office in the municipality south of Freiburg - the position was therefore classified too low.
