TVöD/TV-L (engl.: Wage Agreement for Public Service and Wage Agreement for Public Service of the States)

The Wage Agreement for Public Service (TVöD) came into action on October 1st 2005 and applies to employees in the federation and municipalities. It was, however, not signed by the Wage Community of the States (TdL), thus on November the 1st 2006 the Wage Agreement for Public Service of the States came (TV-L) into action. The TVöD substitutes the Bundesangestelltentarif (BAT) as well as the Wage Agreements for Employees of the Federation and Municipal Employers and differs in many points from previous agreements.

Thus, there are now uniform scale wages for municipalities and the federation and it is no longer differentiated between employees and labourers with regard to wage rights as well as between the sectors federation and municipalities. Further changes were decided in the field of payment; salary levels were reduced to six and the highest level is reached after 15 years. Promotion is put into action according to the actual duration of employment and no longer to the seniority (Senioritätsprinzip).

The new agreement also contains incentive bonus payments which can be made in addition to the scale wages. Researchers for instance can now skip the first salary level and be directly accepted in the second level if they can show certain work experience. Furthermore, employees with outstanding achievements can be prematurely paid according to higher salary levels whereas reduced achievements can decelerate the promotion to the next higher level. Monthly incentives, up to two levels higher, can be paid to employees as an offset to higher living expenses or to make the work offer for certain specialists more attractive. To motivate employees for jobs financed by third party funds, 10% of the annual salary can be invoiced as special payment. If employees constantly show good achievements, they can be rewarded with monthly incentives or a one-off special bonus by their employer. The aforementioned possibilities are often not used.

Professors are only appointed to so-called W-offices. This includes the salary levels W1 to W3, however, special payments can only be done under the following conditions: bonus payments can be warranted if there are currently any appointment proceedings, if the professor shows outstanding achievements in research, education, art, further education or the promotion of young researchers or is taking over positions or tasks in the administration of the institution. A promotion according to seniority, as it was common in C-Salary Levels does no longer exist in W-Salary Levels. In addition to the base salary, family allowances can be paid from level W1 onwards.

Junior-professorships of W1-offices cannot be warranted incentives; however, according to respective positive achievements, a bonus of 260€ might be granted. Special payments can be made provided that the maintaining of staff requirements calls for it. Those payments do not exceed ten percent of the monthly base salary.

Regulations for employment contracts, working conditions as well as general regulations for classification remain unaltered. Likewise sick benefits remain the same; however, the duration of drawing sick benefits has been heightened from 26 weeks up to 39 weeks according to the duration of employment. Similar rules apply to holiday, special holiday, release from work, and ending of the employment contract. Wage agreements for pension plans and semi-retirements have been adopted unaltered.  

Whereas the federation does no longer differentiate between the areas East and West since April 1st 2008, municipalities and the TV-L still stick to separate regulations. The TV-L applies to employees who have a contract with an employer who is a member of a TdL or a member society of the TdL. The contract bases on the TVöD, does however differentiate in certain points concerning the regulations for lecturers and in the sciences.  

Further information

On this website you can look at salary scales of the federation as well as a wage calculator of the TVöD for the entire federal territory.

For the field of the Municipal Employers’ Association (VKA) you can look at salary scales and wage calculators of the TVöD for the Area West resp. Area East.

These websites provide salary scales and wage calculators of the TV-L for the Area West resp. Area East.