North Rhine-Westphalia: Laumann: State for relief collective agreement at university hospitals

NRW Health Minister Laumann is clearly on the side of the union and employees in the university hospital dispute.

North Rhine-Westphalia: Laumann: State for relief collective agreement at university hospitals

NRW Health Minister Laumann is clearly on the side of the union and employees in the university hospital dispute. He also agrees to the previously disputed financing. Employers are now being asked to come to a collective bargaining agreement.

Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) - The North Rhine-Westphalian Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) has strengthened the university clinic employees in the recently deadlocked dispute about better working conditions. "I made it clear from the start that I think Verdi's demand for a collective agreement to ease the burden is right. This state government wants this recognition collective agreement to come about," said Laumann on Thursday in front of strikers in the state parliament after a previous meeting with representatives of the Union Verdi.

Laumann also agreed on behalf of the coalition before the subsequent session of the state parliament in Düsseldorf that the costs for areas that would not be covered by the health insurance companies would be covered, which is still disputed. There, the governing parties of the CDU and Greens wanted to submit a motion for a resolution, said Laumann: "If there is a collective agreement, it is clear that the state, as the provider of the university hospitals, is the addressee for costs that go beyond the dual hospital financing." That is the decisive sentence in the application, which would be passed by both governing factions in the state parliament. "He definitely has a majority," said Laumann.

Despite the more than eight-week long absence of the nursing staff and other employees at the six NRW university hospitals in Bonn, Aachen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Essen and Münster, there was no rapprochement between employers and employees in the fight for a collective agreement. The fronts are totally hardened.

Quite openly, Laumann called on the clinic bosses to approach the employees and thus enable the end of the strikes. "I say it to both negotiating parties: After such a long strike, everything is on the table," emphasized Laumann, and said in the direction of the employer: "You can sit down at some point and say: How do we get it over with and how do we solve it ?" says Laumann. And addressed to the strikers: "You won't see things any differently in two weeks than you do today. And that's why I'm hoping that things will get moving in the next few days."

With the amendment of the Higher Education Act by the state parliament on Wednesday, the legal prerequisites were created for the clinics to be able to conduct independent collective bargaining with Verdi. But after a total of 16 days of negotiations, the employees also rejected the extended offer presented by the clinic management as insufficient. "With the declaration by the employers that there will be no regulations with them to compensate for the real stress and strain situations of the individual employees, the clinic directors are questioning the core of the collective agreement on relief," commented Verdi country manager Gabriele Schmidt. She described the offer and the employer's behavior as an "affront" and even spoke of an "escalation" because of the threat to cast doubt on the general collective agreement.

Verdi is obliging the new state government with Health Minister Laumann to adhere to the assurances that the collective agreement for relief will come. He also has to ensure that the general collective agreement, which regulates salaries, working hours, vacation and much more, remains untouched. It is up to the government and "Laumann personally" to make this clear to the clinic directors. For her part, Schmidt threatened: "Otherwise we will be in a permanent conflict, the end of which is not foreseeable."

In an expanded offer, the clinics had brought into play, among other things, seven additional days off per year for nursing staff and, for the first time, improvements for care-related professional groups such as operating theaters, emergency rooms or heart catheter laboratories. So far, they had been left out, which Verdi did not accept. According to the heads of the clinic, they are in "constructive talks" with Verdi. It is expected that the strikes will end. In the end, however, there was no solution in sight.

The Cologne Higher Labor Court plans to announce a decision this Friday as to whether Verdi may call on workers at the Bonn University Hospital to go on strike. In the first instance, the clinic failed with an urgent application to the Bonn Labor Court.