The judge has a lot to read with all the statements and counterstatements, some of which were worked out until the night before. On Tuesday afternoon at the Munich labor court, it is about cumbersome paragraphs when an employer has to involve the works council. That kind of thing happens a lot, but on this day the motto is: AfD against AfD. The works council of the state office against the Bavarian party leadership. In addition, there is the question of how financially ailing the AfD is in the Free State. And, how should it be otherwise in this party, also about the eternal dispute over direction and battle of the wings.
But first things first: The AfD wants to move. It currently has its headquarters in Hohenbrunn in the south of Munich. Since 2019, she has also rented the premises of a forwarding company in Greding, Middle Franconia. In Greding, AfD party conferences usually take place in a hall, with a warehouse next door and a place where smaller meetings have taken place to date. A few weeks ago, a circular from the Executive Board, which has been in the hands of Member of the Bundestag Stephan Protschka since autumn 2021, reached the members in Bavaria. It talks about “our difficult financial situation”, allegedly inherited from previous board members – the budget for 2022 shows “a massive underfunding that we have to compensate for as soon as possible”. The idea: Greding should become the new and only office, one cannot “evade the responsibility for the party finances”. Even then, Upper Bavarian AfDlers replied that a party headquarters had to be reasonably close to the state capital, anything else was a “fatal signal”.
The works council, which was only founded at the beginning of the year, is now suing for the omission of the move. This is planned very soon and the employees cannot be presented with a fait accompli for a possible further legal action. If you ask around in the AfD, you will get other interpretations. There is talk of the employees being “raised” – six people in 3.5 jobs – and a “reign of terror”. Not for cost reasons, but because the employees were hired by earlier, more liberal board members; and not from the ethnic “wing”, which is now at the helm. Apparently, one hears, followers are supposed to move up, “a feeding trough for the loyal troops”. The wing officially no longer exists, it is considered dissolved. However, it is no big secret that the current board of directors is already numerically dominated by its remaining network and sympathizers. State chief Protschka himself always emphasizes that he does not stand for any current. In fact, he often meanders around, say his critics, but when in doubt he usually stands on the wing side.
The accusation: the party wanted to disgust more liberal employees
The court now has the conflict on the basis of labor law issues: the move, in combination with a newly issued attendance requirement, serves to get rid of unwanted people, says the lawyer for the works council; because almost no one would commute that far. The freight forwarding rooms are also unsuitable. Kurt Schreck, another legal advisor to the works council and formerly a member of the party leadership, said: The fact is that the political majority on the board has changed and this should now be reflected in the full-time structure – by making the work “so stupid” for the employees that they quit. The party’s lawyer argued that a lot was already happening in Greding, such as the technical committees. The location is central in Bavaria, has parking spaces and other advantages, and it is also planned to keep everyone employed there. The name of this lawyer, who represented the board, caused resentment in more moderate AfD circles: Laurens Nothdurft, who has a past with the NPD, among others; and for this reason in 2019 as legal counsel for the state parliamentary group was no longer tenable.
At the end of the AfD leadership, the labor court in Munich was right: the office can move. “Sometimes tough decisions have to be made, that’s no different in a party than in a company,” Protschka told the SZ. The thesis of the political motivation is “nonsense”. The walls are now being freshly painted in Greding.