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Student sits at workstation and looks at laptop. © Aliona Kardash​/​TU Dortmund
Strategy Day February 2025

PRwiss discusses recording of working time and room concepts

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At the first strategy day of the Academic Staff Council in 2025, members discussed current developments at TU Dortmund University and developed strategies on topics such as concepts for the recording of working time recording and the distribution of office space.

At the first Strategy Day of the year, members of the Staff Council on 27 February 2025 discussed key topics and developments relevant for the academic staff of TU Dortmund University.  We focused on possible regulations for recording working hours and new office concepts in light of the need to save space. 

It is still unclear whether, when and in what form working time recording will be introduced for academic and artistic employees at TU Dortmund University. Discussions about such regulations at universities were triggered by a ruling by the European Court of Justice in 2019, which stipulated an obligation to record working hours for all EU member states. This ruling was was confirmed by the Federal Labour Court (BAG) in September 2022. A corresponding amendment to the Working Hours Act was drafted under Labour Minister Hubertus Heil. However, this was not passed before the collapse of the governing coalition in November 2024.  Currently it is still unclear whether or to what extent academic employees at universities will be exempt from the obligation to record working hours in future. The German Rectors' Conference, for example, has called for such an exemption.

PRwiss has been in dialogue with the President of TU Dortmund since 2022 regarding concepts for  a recording of working hours. Discussions with academic staff have shown how widely interests and opinions differ when it comes to this issue. Can this type of recording be an instrument to set limits on possible exploitation by superiors? Can it be used to better enforce the right to qualification within statutory working hours, or does it restrict the flexibility and freedom of academic research and teaching too much? Should recording be voluntary or compulsory? How should it be structured in order to take into account the situation of employees with care work and family responsibilities? What working time corridors should such a regulation be based on? These questions and possible answers were discussed intensively during the Strategy Day.

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