The next Staff Council elections will take place at WU on November 19 and 20, 2025. As the first step in the election process, a general staff assembly will be held on October 23, 2025, to elect the election committee. This article aims to highlight the important role of the Academic Staff council (wissBR) at WU and provide background information on the work of the Academic Staff Council to all interested parties.

According to the legal requirements of the Labour Constitution Act (ArbVG), the Academic Staff Council has the task of representing and promoting all economic, social, health, and cultural interests of all academic employees at WU (from student assistants to appointed professors). At WU, the Academic Staff Council fulfills these tasks by having Staff Council members represent it as members or guests in numerous committees and working groups. These range from meetings of the Senate and Senate commissions to working groups within the framework of occupational health management to the bi-monthly IT Jour Fixe with representatives of IT Services. In addition, the wissBR is naturally actively and emphatically involved in all areas where the ArbVG provides for the participation of the Staff Council. The wissBR therefore regularly negotiates the content of operational agreements, holds regular discussions with representatives of the Rectorate, and, within the scope of its monitoring rights, ensures that the employer complies with data protection regulations. In its approach, it coordinates closely with the Works Council for administrative staff at WU.

In addition, the members of the Academic Staff Council are available to all academic employees of WU for consultations on all aspects of their employment relationship at WU. We also organize social events and networking meetings and are in lively exchange with staff councils at other universities and interest groups such as the Chamber of Labour (AK) and the trade union (GÖD).

We provide regular information about our services and activities in our “BR Info” newsletter, which is published approximately every two months, and we also summarize all essential information for academic staff at WU on our website.

The election of a staff council is required by law if a company employs five or more people and must take place every five years. The size of the staff council depends on the specific number of employees. Since it is also required by law for universities to have separate works councils for academic and administrative staff, the approximately 1,400 academic employees at WU are relevant for the size of the wissBR at WU. In the Staff Council election in November, 14 main members and a maximum of 14 substitute members are therefore expected to be appointed to the wissBR.

At some universities, various lists, often oriented toward specific political groups, compete with each other, while at other universities, single lists are standing for election. At WU, it has been customary since the beginning of the wissBR for a single list to stand for election. In order to ensure the broadest possible representation of all academic staff at WU, great care is taken when drawing up the election proposal to ensure that as many departments and staff categories as possible are represented on the Staff Council. Of course, this also requires the willingness of individual representatives from the various staff groups, which is why we are calling on colleagues with a new QV and professors in particular to contact the current chair team if they are interested in participating in the Academic Staff Council in the future. With a Staff Council that is as diverse as possible, we hope to motivate many eligible voters to participate in the Staff Council election on November 19 and 20. A high voter turnout is a strong sign for the future representative work of the new committee! We are therefore aiming for a clear increase in voter turnout compared to the last election.

In this context, it should also be mentioned that the Academic Staff Council also forms the so-called “Dienststellenausschuss” (no translation available) for civil servants. All categories of academic staff who have an active employment relationship with WU on October 23, 2025, from student employees to appointed professors (regardless of their citizenship), are therefore eligible to vote. Only members of the Rectorate and department chairs are not eligible to vote for the Academic Staff Council.

All eligible voters who exercise their right to vote for the Academic Staff Council will receive a small thank-you gift for participating in the election!

Further details about the election (location, time, postal voting options, etc.) will be announced at the end of October.

^10.09.2025

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