FAQs

According to the Hochschulgesetz NRW §46 Abs. 1, scientific assistants (so SHK, WHF und WHK) fulfil tasks in research and teaching, or directly associated administrative tasks. They work under the supervision of a research and/or teaching staff member.

In practice, a distinction is made between student employees without a degree (SHK), student employees with a Bachelor's degree (WHF) and ones with a Master's degree (WHK).

If you are employed as a SHK, WHF or WHK and your tasks do not fall under the above definition, you may be entitled to (better) employment according to the collective agreement of the federal states (TVL). Please contact us if you are unsure whether this is the case for you.

In the summer semester 2024, SHK at the University of Bonn will receive €13.25, WHF €14.36 and WHK €18.76 per hour.
In the winter semester 2024/2025, SHK will receive €13.98, WHF €15.15 and WHK €19.79 per hour.

These wage increases were negotiated by the TVStud initiative of the trade unions Ver.di and GEW in the last collective bargaining round 2023 with the Tarifgemeinschaft der Länder (TdL). At the end of 2023, the parties agreed on minimum hourly wages for student employees in a contractual agreement. These amount to €13.25 in summer semester 2024 and €13.98 in summer semester 2025.
The TdL has rejected the demand to include student employees in the collective agreement of the federal states (TVL) or to conclude a separate collective agreement for them.
Under pressure from the student representatives, the University of Bonn decided that the wage increases for SHK would come one semester earlier and that there would be additional increases for WHF and WHK.

The contractual agreement between Ver.di and GEW and the Tarifgemeinschaft der Länder (TdL) stipulates that the contract term for student employees is generally one year from the start of the 2024 summer semester. In justified exceptional cases, shorter or longer contract terms are possible.

If your contract was concluded or extended after the start of the summer semester 2024 and it is still less than one year, you are entitled to receive a reason for this.
If you are unsure whether the reason is legitimate, please feel free to contact us.

If you have been paid no or too little salary for a month, it is worth to formally register your claims with the university.

As a first step, you should look at your documents. What does your employment contract say about the number of hours and the amount of pay? Does it state when and how you have to make a claim? If there is nothing in your employment contract, your claims will expire after three years and you can assert them either by letter or email.

In the second step, you should determine your specific claim. The decisive factor is what you have received and what you would have been entitled to. Calculate the exact amount using your hours and the current hourly rate. It is very important that the amount you are still entitled to from the university is exact and correct in your claim.

In the third step, you should determine the addressee. The addressee is not your supervisor or the finance department, but the university in its function as your employer. If you are unsure to whom you should send the claim, it does not hurt to send it to several people.

In the fourth step, you should formulate the email/letter. This must state that you are claiming an outstanding wage in a predetermined amount. You should briefly justify your claim (e.g. "So far I have only received x euros, but a pay rise on date y would have entitled me to z euros."). However, the justification does not have to contain exact paragraphs or anything similar. If your payslips are still outstanding or incorrect, you can claim this at the same time. Finally, you should set a deadline within which the correction must be made. Usually this is 2 weeks. Alternatively, you can also specify the next regular transfer date. Finally, you should ask for a confirmation of receipt so that you know that you have reached the right place and that your claim has been recognised.

If you have any further questions or need help, we at SHK Council will be happy to help you.

Yes, the statutory minimum holiday entitlement of 4 weeks off work or 20 days per year applies to student employees, calculated on the basis of a full-time position (40 hours/week). Your actual holiday entitlement is therefore calculated as follows:

(your working days/5) x 20 = holiday entitlement

If you have already been employed for six months, you can utilise your full holiday entitlement. Before that, you can take it pro rata, e.g. one week's holiday after three months.

The HR department has created a tool to help you calculate your vacation entitlement.
You can always find the current translated version in Confluence. (under the point "Berechnung des Urlaubsanspruch für Hilfskräfte")

If you do not have access to Confluence, you can also the tool here (Excel-file).
Instructions for use (taken from Confluence):

Inquiries regarding the amount of vacation days of auxiliary staff like student assistants have increased lately. You can therefore find a simple tool in the form of an excel sheet below to calculate your vacation days.

This is a tool to help you calculate your vacation days taking the national German vacation laws into account.

The boxes in bright orange have to be filled in manually, the white boxes will be calculated automatically.

If you have fixed working days and the public holiday falls on one of these days, you do not have to work on this day and of course you do not have to make up this time later.

If you do not have fixed working days and a public holiday falls on a working day, your weekly working hours are reduced proportionately. This means that if you work ten hours a week at flexible times, for example, your working hours will be reduced to eight hours in a week with a public holiday.

The University of Bonn has a 5-day week. Exceptions to this are only made for authorised overtime, which must be notified at least four days in advance. Work on Sundays and public holidays is generally excluded.

You do not have to be available outside of your working hours, not even to "just quickly" reply to an e-mail. In principle, working time is working time and free time is free time!

Overtime is only permitted for student employees if it has been explicitly authorised for a specific period of time.

In contrast to overtime, there are also so-called plus and minus hours. In principle, it is only possible for student employees at the University of Bonn to work such plus hours if a so-called working time account has been agreed. Working time accounts are normally managed using the so-called MiLoG table (Minimum Wage Act). It bears this name because its use is intended to guarantee that the Minimum Wage Act is complied with and that no student employees work more hours than contractually agreed and thus undercut the minimum wage in their actual hourly pay.
If such an account exists, it is permissible for you to work plus hours without an explicit order. You then have the right to reduce these plus hours at another time. It is not possible to be remunerated for overtime or plus hours in the form of an additional payment.

If no working time account has been agreed and you have fallen short of your contractually agreed weekly or monthly working hours, it is not permitted to have this time made up. It is not your responsibility or fault if your working hours are not fully utilised by the employer.

If you have the feeling that you are being asked to work an inappropriate amount of overtime, especially if you have not agreed to a working time account, then please get in touch with us!