Am 30.12.2011 19:08, schrieb Neil Williams:
That is what is happening in the Thatcherized Britain, but not
in
Germany.

TUPE is not Thatcherite, quite the opposite.

I know, having the franchise changes in the railways is one thing her
politics could not smash.

Is there no German equivalent?

Yes, the issue is called "Betriebsübergang", and BGB (Civil code)
paragraph 613a describes the rights of workers under such a change. The
english translation of BGB gives "Rights and duties in the case of
transfer of business" as the title of that section:
http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_bgb/englisch_bgb.html#p2428

But the German rulers have conceived the tendering of transit
operations more to the way you would chose your paperhanger or
construction company or the janitor or office cleaning company: you call
another service provider who brings his own personnel and tools and
machinery. In the case of railway operations, bringing their own
engineers, locomotives and other rolling stock, guards, etc etc. (There
are some exceptions, where the Land or the designated public transit
authority is the owner of the rolling stock, in order to "facilite
competition").

To the difference of the British rail privatization, this does very
well allow to drive wages down.

I guess the German capitalist politicians have also thought of this
when they decided their way of railway privatisation: maintaining the DB
AG as a "national champion" who could become an international "player"
(today effectively the 200 pound gorilla in the European transport
market), while introducing a tendering system which allows upstarts to
win market share from the "incumbent" mainly by paying lower wages, and
by this token putting pressure on the wages at DB and other (former)
public transport companies.

A number of municipal transit companies (e.g. the Frankfurt/Main one,
the one of Berlin, and others) have set up a low wage bus company where
bus drivers are paid 30% less than the ones employed directly according
to the old public sector collective bargaining contracts. To add insult
to injury, in most cases Social-Democrats and trade union burocrats have
voted for such moves, in order to "save the public company" which would
otherwise lose out completely to the private competitors from Veolia etc
with their lower wage bus drivers.



Cheers,
L.W.