AfD Candidacy: Bremen Inner Mission Fires Employee

Background: Church Labor Law and the Duty of Loyalty

Hamburg labor law expert Michael Fuhlrott explained the legal classification of the case. A mere party candidacy as such need not yet entail any labor law consequences, said Fuhlrott. The special feature is that this is a church employer, which may demand from its employees a degree of loyalty to its own principles that goes beyond the usual level.

Church labor law, regulated among other things in the so-called Third Way of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), allows church and diaconal employers to assess employees on the basis of the church's own loyalty code. Unlike in secular labor law, a public stance against the church's value base can already be deemed grounds for termination, without there having to be a concrete breach of duty in the workplace.

Fuhlrott verbatim: „Hier aber haben wir die Besonderheit, dass es sich um einen kirchlichen Arbeitgeber handelt." He is thereby alluding to the case law of the Federal Labor Court, which grants churches and their welfare associations a broader scope regarding loyalty requirements compared to state employers. This scope has been the subject of controversial debate in legal scholarship for years, because it stands in conflict with general freedom of association and the expectation of party-political neutrality on the part of employees.

Legal Classification by Experts

In practice, church employers have repeatedly dismissed employees in the past who publicly took positions deemed incompatible with the Christian understanding of values. The range has stretched from open sympathy for right-wing populist movements to trade union activity, which is also viewed in some quarters within the church itself as incompatible with the model of the service community.

The AfD itself has addressed the matter in the available reports as further evidence of an alleged exclusion of its supporters in the public sector and in the social economy. Critics of church labor law, on the other hand, see it as confirmation that the special status of churches on loyalty issues is in need of reform. The EKD and its Diakonie point to the right of self-determination of religious communities, which is enshrined in the Basic Law.

Possible Steps Before the Labor Court

For the affected woman, the path to the labor court remains fundamentally open after a termination. There it would have to be examined whether the loyalty requirements were proportionate in the specific case and whether the termination met the formal requirements of church labor law. The chances of success of such lawsuits are assessed as mixed in labor law literature, since the courts have so far granted churches a wide margin of assessment in loyalty matters.

Nothing was reported in the available sources about the amount of any potential severance payment or settlement. A statement from the affected woman herself was also not available at the time of reporting. According to the reports, the Bremen Inner Mission did not wish to comment further on the specific individual case beyond the reference to the code of values.

The case joins a series of similar disputes documented in recent years, for instance at diaconal hospitals, evangelical daycare centers, and welfare associations in western Germany. Observers interpret the latest termination as an indication that church employers are increasingly willing to enforce their special rights even against employees who move politically at the edge of the established spectrum.