# SAP and unions

The cloud software company SAP employs 22,000 people globally. Employees in Germany have been represented by works councils since 2006, as elected employee representatives on the Supervisory Board. Employees in Israel are unionised with Histadrut.

## Germany
### Works Council

On 23 February 2006, three employees at SAP in Germany initiated the legal process to form a works council. All three of the initiators were members of IG Metall trade union. In a vote held at the election meeting on 2 March, 91% of employees opposed the formation of an electoral board, the precursor to forming a works council. German labour law guarantees the right to form a works council, so the three initiators petitioned the Mannheim Labour Court [de] on 5 March to appoint an electoral board. On 14 March, the SAP Supervisory Board responded by organizing another election meeting on 30 March, with a group of employees perceived as more distant to trade unions to administer the works council elections [de], making the court application redundant. Other companies, like IBM already had works councils.

#### 2006 election

On 21 June 2006, 65% of the 10,800 employees of SAP voted amongst 10 different candidates lists fielding over 400 employees in total. A 37 person Works Council was established for the first time, with 16 seats going to Wir für Dich (We For You), 11 seats to MUT and 3 seats each for the lists Die Unabhängigen (The Independent), ABS and Pro Betriebsrat (Pro Works Council) and the remaining seat to TEAM. Four other lists did not receive enough votes to win any seats. The initial 3 colleagues who started the election process were on the Pro Betriebsrat list.
in December, management promoted a unified works council election at SAP Germany. At SAP Systems Integration (SI), separate elections were held at all 6 locations in Germany. In 2008, SAP SI merged with SAP Germany, resulting in a single works council.

#### 2022 election

In the works council election on 5 May 2022, 15 out of 45 seats, or one-third went to the IG Metall and ver.di trade union lists. Both works council chair positions were held by union representatives for the first time in SAP history. Eberhard Schick from the IG Metall affiliated Pro Mitbestimmung (Pro Codetermination) list was elected as works council chair, and Anne Schmitz of the ver.di affiliated Upgrade list as deputy chair.

### Supervisory Board

In 1989, one year after SAP went public, it organised Supervisory Board elections as required under the German Codetermination Act. The two elected employee representatives on the board were Gerhard Maier and Bernhard Koller. In the 1993 elections, the union reserved seats went to the Christian Metalworkers' Union.
Prior to 2014, SAP was legally structured as a German Aktiengesellschaft (AG), with a 16 seat Supervisory Board. In accordance with the Codetermination Act, half of the seats are reserved for the employer, with the remaining eight seats reserved for employees, including two seats for trade union representatives who are typically not employees of SAP. Afterwards SAP converted into SAP SE, a European Company. Similar to the German Codetermination Act, employee representation in the Supervisory Board is required under the European Union Employee Involvement Directive 2001. Currently, SAP SE (across Europe) has 18 seats, with half reserved for employees.
In the 2024 Supervisory Board election, two members of IG Metall/Ver.di are back after four years. Works council chair Eberhard Schick was elected to the Board from the IG Metall mandate and ver.di member Andreas Hahn was elected from the European Works Council mandate.

#### Court rulings

The German Federal Labour Court referred in 2020, a question to the European Court of Justice (C-677/20), whether German legislation on trade union representation in Supervisory Boards is compatible with Article 4 of the Employee Involvement Directive, specifically whether distinct elections for employee representatives and trade union representatives must be maintained. The Court Advocate-General agreed that national laws with regards to trade union representatives and electoral procedures remained applicable even after the conversion of an Aktiengesellschaft into a European Company.
A provision in the agreement between SAP and the Special Negotiation Body for the new SE Works Council would allow for SAP to reduce the Supervisory Board to 12 seats, of which six are reserved for employees, four in Germany specifically. While trade unions ver.di and IG Metall would continue to be able to nominate representatives, they would no longer be able to hold separate elections as previously done in the German Aktiengesellschaft form.

## Israel

The Israeli branch of SAP is unionised under the Cellular, Internet and High-Tech Workers Union of the Histadrut trade union federation. A collective agreement signed in 2020 between SAP and Histadrut covers 800 workers in Israel.