Ende der Tarifbindung

Already in the 1990s, the employers’ associations have developed the model of a membership without the obligation to pay in line with a collective wage agreement (OT membership), as more and more employers complained that regional collective agreements were too inflexible and rigid for their own companies. As an alternative to a resignation from the employers’ association, the OT membership provides advantages for the association as well as for the individual employer. In order to simultaneously maintain the functioning of the free collective bargaining, the statute has to meet certain requirements developed by the jurisprudence. This is particularly interesting when an employer decides to leave the association or to switch to an OT membership during ongoing collective bargaining. This situation becomes problematic for an employer if the change into an OT membership subsequently turns out to be ineffective. Then, the question about internal liability claims against the association arises.