Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

At aggregate level, the existence of a regulation on the early retirement scheme in the
firm is closely correlated with personnel reductions (Klammer 2003: 45). Upon the
inception of the pre-retirement scheme in Germany, the issue of ´ humanisation of working
life´ was the goal, but later on, this overlapped with the goal to reduce unemployment
(Ebbinghaus 2002: 165-7). The Law on the Early Retirement Scheme defines as goals the
“gradual parting from work into retirement” and the “hiring of an otherwise unemployed
person”. The actual practice could not be farther away. In the studied firms, the part-time
model of ATZ was used only in a few cases. The reasons for the low utilisation were the
low spread of part-time workplaces, the need of the firms to get the workers “off the head
count”, and the wish of the workers for a “clean cut”. A former apprentice or an
unemployed worker were hired only in those firms which did not conduct personnel
reductions; accordingly, only in few cases was the establishment reimbursed for the costs.
Despite the rare utilisation of the part-time model, employers regard the early retirement
scheme as an instrument for a “gradual transition into retirement” (as reads, inter al., the
preamble to the works council agreement in Firm DE-14) due to the fact that the worker
stays in the firm for the first half of the ATZ contract (instead of exiting directly as in the
case of pre-retirement or an old-age pension), has time to accommodate to early exit, and
the firm has time to plan the succession.
An interesting example of another early exit option is the sectoral agreement on preretirement
schemes in the private banking sector. It allows for exit at the age of 58 years for
women (which afterwards take up the old-age pension for women) and at the age of 61
years for men (with subsequent receipt of the seniority pension). An additional works
council agreement on ´pre-pre-retirement´ in Firm DE-2 allows exit as early as four years
prior to retirement age. For the purpose of personnel reductions, another works council
agreement was concluded which stipulated the entry into the ´special pre-retirement
scheme´ at the age of 53 in the case of women and at the age of 55 or 56 in the case of men
(with subsequent take-up of the old-age pension for the severely handicapped or the longterm
insured). In individual cases (as I learnt at the second interview in 2006), preretirement
schemes with a duration of up to 12.5 years were negotiated.
The use of pre-retirement schemes for personnel reductions in the bank (146 of 245
reduced jobs in total) was possible only due to co-operation on side of the workers. The
personnel manager estimates that in 80 per cent of cases, pre-retirement was initiated by the
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