Tarifliche Regelung der Lehrverpflichtung des wissenschaftlichen Personals an staatlichen Hochschulen

The obligation of academic staff at public universities to teach is subject to ordinances governing the obligation to teach adopted by the individual German Federal States (Länder). These ordinances stipulate the scope of the relevant obligation to teach. They are applicable both to staff who are directly employed by the Federal State and in cases where the relevant university is the superior authority (Dienstherr) and employer (Arbeitgeber). Recently employees' representatives have been keen to make these teaching obligations the subject of collective agreement. This threatens to result in different regulations applying to civil servants (Beamte) and employees (Angestellte) at public universities. It is therefore necessary to look into the question whether such collective regulations would be permitted by law. Firstly, it is only possible to make private law employment relationships the subject of collective agreements, not, however, civil servant relationships. The obligation to teach of the employed members of the academic staff, as a specific form of the obligation to work, is in fact part of the substance of their employment relationships and can therefore, in principle, be the subject matter of collective agreement in accordance with Section 1 (1) of the German Act Governing Collective Agreement (Tarifvertragsgesetz). However, the question is whether the ordinances governing the obligation to teach are mandatory and would thus exclude any collective regulations in this regard. In terms of constitutional law, there is the further question whether an exclusion of collective regulations would be an infringement of the fundamental right of the freedom of association (Koalitionsfreiheit) as provided for in Article 9 (3) of the German Constitution and whether such infringement could be justified. Furthermore, it is necessary to clarify the legal situation in the case of universities having a capacity of their own as the superior authority and employer, because the relevant universities themselves are capable of being a party to collective agreement. And finally, specific provisions of the university laws as well may affect the question of whether collective regulations would be permitted in the area of the academic staff's obligation to teach, for example if it is possible under such specific provisions to determine regulations deviating from the Federal State ordinance governing the obligation to teach. The authors investigate these questions in the present article and come to the conclusion that collective regulations which deviate from the stipulations in the Federal State ordinances governing the obligation to teach would not be permitted by law, also to the extent that the universities themselves are the superior authorities and employers of academic staff.