Co-determination awards 2025: Two companies are setting standards!

Co-determination awards 2025: Two companies are setting standards!

The awarding of the Co-Determination Prize 2025 by the Saarland Chamber of Labor caused great celebration among the prize winners on Wednesday evening. The aim of this award is to celebrate outstanding examples of co-determination in companies. This year there was a premiere: two first prizes were awarded.

The two winners, the works council of PUREM by Eberspächer in Neunkirchen and the works council of John Deere GmbH & Co. KG in Saarbrücken, were honored for their impressive projects. PUREM by Eberspächer developed a transformation fund to finance future projects, which was done with the harmonious agreement of all those involved and ruled out redundancies for operational reasons. John Deere, on the other hand, implemented an innovative working time model that reacts flexibly to the order situation and combines elements such as flexible working hours, partial wage compensation and further training phases.

Awards ceremony with special awards

In addition, the works council of KiTA Kinderland im Kreis Saarlouis gGmbH was awarded third prize. He received praise for company integration management (BEM), which supports employees after a long period of illness. A special prize went to the United Volksbanken eG's representatives for severely disabled people, recognized for their extraordinary commitment to the rights of people with disabilities.

In his speech, Jörg Caspar, Chairman of the Chamber of Labor, emphasized the immense importance of co-determination for a fair and sustainable working world. In times of digitalization and globalization, it is more important than ever to find fair compromises between employers and employees. Loud a brochure from the BMAS Co-determination is not only an element of democracy in the workplace, but also the basis for economic success and social peace in Germany. It creates the necessary basis to use the opportunities offered by digitalization to the benefit of everyone.

New labor law regulations on the horizon

However, developments in the world of work are not just limited to the award ceremony. On April 9, 2025, the coalition agreement between the CDU, CSU and SPD was published, in which many important labor law issues are addressed. A significant innovation is the introduction of a maximum weekly working time, which is intended to improve the compatibility of work and family. Electronic time recording will become mandatory, with inevitable transitional regulations being implemented for small and medium-sized companies.

Another exciting element is the legal anchoring of digital works council meetings and works council elections. The aim is to improve the company's opportunities for co-determination through digital access rights for trade unions. Finally, tax incentives for overtime and part-time positions should help to make it easier for skilled workers to remain in employment and increase collective bargaining coverage.

These measures show that the idea of ​​co-determination not only lives in excellent examples such as those from PUREM and John Deere, but is also on the political agenda. In times of change, co-determination remains a central issue that affects all employees and sets the course for a fair future in the workplace.