Die sachgrundlose Befristung von Arbeitsverträgen nach dem nw Hochschulfreiheitsgesetz

The Hochschulfreiheitsgesetz (HFG) of the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has abolished the status of NRW's universities as public corporations of the federal state. Universities have become independent as public corporations of their own. Simultaneously, employment relationships of all previous employees of the federal state have been transferred to the universities by law. Similar regulations have been enacted by Berlin and Saarland.The universities' new independence and especially their succession into the employer's legal position raises the question, whether temporary work contracts can be concluded with employees of universities. The Part-Time Work and Temporary Contracts Act (TzBfG) allows to conclude temporary labour contracts regardless of a le- gitimate objective reason only if no prior employment had been contracted with the same employer. It is necessary to differentiate between the following constellations: Without a legitimate objective reason, the university cannot temporarily employ an employee who has been employed by the same university before January 1st, 2007 (coming into effect of the HFG), whose employment endured the turn of the year 2006/2007; this result becomes evident by regarding the parallel case of transfer of undertaking (sec. 613a BGB (Civil Code)).The case is different, when the employment had been cancelled before the coming into effect of the HFG; then a temporary labour contract can be concluded regardless of a legitimate objective reason. The same applies, when the employee has worked be- fore for another university than the one which now intends to employ him.