The parties to the collective agreement are aware that increasing automation and digitalisation may lead to job losses. This collective agreement is intended to provide social support for any such job losses. The common goal is to preserve jobs and the ability to work in the digital future.

(1) The [Company] waives the right to terminate employment for operational reasons for the duration of this collective agreement. (2019-2024)

(2) Where operational measures result in job losses and it is foreseeable that the continued employment of the employees affected cannot be secured solely by means of the company regulations on the procedure for filling vacancies integrated into the co-determination process, this must be ensured by creating or further developing suitable company regulations on age instruments (early retirement, part-time work for older workers, special compensation for older workers), compensation in the case of voluntary redundancies and job-securing job swaps.

Negotiations between the parties shall be initiated by one of the parties if necessary.

(1) The employer shall waive the right to terminate employment for operational reasons due to automation measures until 31 December 2025. If the first commissioning (go-live) of automated straddle carriers at a terminal does not take place until after 01.01.2022, the waiver shall be extended by one year until 31.12.2026.

(2) Furthermore, the employer shall waive the right to terminate employment for operational reasons for a maximum period of 3 years beginning with the conclusion of a sustainable personnel concept in accordance with section 5, paragraph 4, sentence 1 of this collective agreement with respect to the employees affected by this measure.

The aforementioned waiver shall end in any case 2 years after the commissioning of the respective automated plant.

§ 4 | Procedure for changing occupational profiles and activities

(1) Occupational profiles and activities are increasingly changing as result of digitisation and/or automation. For the parties at a business level, this change is linked to testing the extent to which changed work contents, work organisation, tasks and skills profiles and qualification requirements lead overall to new requirements and therefore to a change in occupational profiles and activities.

(2) If, from the point of view of one or both parties at a business level, in relation to the changes described in Section 1 above, adjustments need to be made with regard to activity descriptions and activity evaluation in salary group directories of collective bargaining agreements, they initiate a dialogue process at company level and make the parties to the collective bargaining agreement aware of this. The aim of the dialogue is to agree any necessary changes in salary group directories of collective bargaining agreements.

(3) If the parties at a business level reach a consensus, they forward a relevant draft amendment to the parties to the collective bargaining agreement in a jointly signed document and append a coordinated justification.

(4) The collective bargaining agreement parties discuss the draft, taking into account the overall collective bargaining agreement structure.

(5) If the parties at a business level are unable to reach an agreement in the dialogue process, the parties to the collective bargaining agreement are included. All necessary documents in relation to this must be submitted.

We will review the roles and responsibilities of shift supervisors, technicians, apprentices and administrators and develop a structure that outlines both a career path for those wishing to progress through the grades and a skills portfolio that encourages employees to maintain, update and refresh where required their personal skills profile.

Measures recommended in the agreement, include:

• The commitment of both parties to upskill or reskill to meet the digital challenges of the enterprise

• Access to and arrangements of training, in line with diverse national industrial relations and training practices and taking into account the diversity of the workforce, such as in the forms of training funds / sectoral funds, learning accounts, competence development plans, vouchers. Training provisions should spell out clearly the conditions of participation, including in terms of duration, financial aspects, and worker commitment.

• Where an employer requests to a worker to participate in a job-related training that is directly linked to the digital transformation of the enterprise, the training is paid by the employer or in line with the collective agreement or national practice. This training can be in-house or off-site and takes place at an appropriate and agreed time for both the employer and the worker, and where possible during working hours. If the training takes place outside of working time, appropriate compensation should be arranged.

• A focus on quality and effective training: This means to provide access to relevant training responding to the identified training needs of the employer and the worker. A key aspect of this in the context of the digital transformation is to train workers, to help them make the best possible use of the digital technologies that are introduced.

• Training arrangements that provide skills which could support mobility between and within sectors.

• Internal or external training validation solutions.

• The operation of schemes such as short time work that combines a reduction of working hours with training, in well-defined circumstances

(1) Employees who take on new or changed tasks have a right to be prepared or accompanied by suitable qualification measures. The qualification is closely linked to the assignment at the new workplace. If the [Company] is unable to offer the relevant qualification in good time, it will be provided outside the [Company] at the employer's expense. The planning of the qualification measure is demand oriented. Demand oriented in these cases means activities required for measures or requirements and changes at the present time, but also activities required in the future (e.g. through digitisation).

(2) The need for qualification is recorded in a joint discussion between the employees who will be working in a new job in the future and the receiving manager and the leaving manager in the course of a needs clarification meeting and forwarded to the personnel and cultural development department. The Staff Council must be involved accordingly.

(3) Advice on verifying appropriate qualification measures (e.g. at the Federal Employment Agency) and qualification measures take place during working hours with continued payment of remuneration. There is an entitlement to a travel allowance and separation allowance in accordance with the Federal Travel Expenses Act and the Separation Allowance Ordinance.

(4) The provisions of the Qualification Opportunities Act must be applied. This enables the employer to apply for or claim further training costs as well as allowances for remuneration from third parties.

24.07 When, as a result of technological change, the Employer determines that an employee requires new skills or knowledge in order to perform the duties of the employee’s substantive position, the Employer will make every reasonable effort to provide the necessary training during the employee’s working hours without loss of pay and at no cost to the employee.

E-learning is a component of the overall strategy which, together with other proven learning methods and optimised training procedures, is intended to improve the training and further training of employees. The use of e-learning serves the following objectives:

• To enable flexible access to continuing training courses in terms of content, time and space.

• Rapid provision of learning units in the case of the demand for prompt qualification, especially of larger target groups.

• Improvement of the efficiency of qualifications through the possibilities of individual design of e-qualifications (in terms of content, time and space).

• Use of e-learning, especially for groups of learners who work/learn spatially distributed.

Basically the following forms of learning can be distinguished, for which e-learning is generally suitable:

• Learning that is predominantly focused on factual acquisition (e.g. product training):These are learning processes that are less susceptible to disruption and can be well supported by e-learning. E-learning can take place at the workplace.

• Learning that requires the linking of a few contents without considering complex interactions (e.g. discussion guide for customer conversations, Excel for beginners): E-learning is suitable depending on the previous knowledge of the learners.

• Learning that requires a combination of contents that are strongly interdependent (e.g. first-time application of basic business knowledge to a case study, Excel for advanced learners) E-learning is suitable depending on the previous knowledge of the learners. The learning process can be susceptible to disruption and is therefore only partially suitable for the workplace.

• Learning that focuses on exercises on behavioural topics (e.g. rhetoric): Here, e-learning is suitable as an add-on.

• Learning that requires media-based interaction with other people present (e.g. learning in virtual classrooms): Here, e-learning is suitable, but only at learning locations that are largely protected from disturbances.