Gesamtverband Steinkohle e.V. (GVSt)

On 1st March 2021, the Hard Coal Association (Gesamtverband Steinkohle e. V. – GVSt), Essen/Germany, changed its name and has been operating under the designation Branchenverband Steinkohle und Nachbergbau e. V. (bsn) since this date. This renaming represents the association’s clarification of the changes in the focus of its work subsequent to the end of coal mining in Germany in 2018. Now, three years after the cessation of mining, the German coal mining industry has definitely arrived in the post-mining era. Today, coal policy and energy industry issues are taking a back seat as the industry is clearly focused on responsibly dealing with the -legacy issues and the so-called perpetual tasks. The association will continue to represent in future the interests of its members,
RAG Aktiengesellschaft, its subsidiaries and STEAG GmbH. The members wanted to make this shift in the association’s objectives recognisable and decided to change its name to bsn (Industry Association for Hard Coal and Post-Mining) (Figure 1).

Representing the interests of its members in all aspects of post-mining – clearly characterised by legal issues concerning dewatering, abandoned mines and surface recultivation – will be added to the association’s other tasks, which will remain unchanged. The bsn represents its members as an employers’ association, counsels them on questions of individual and collective labour law, including company pension schemes, and performs important tasks in social self-administration. It remains the collective bargaining party for its members bound by collective agreements and is currently negotiating with its collective bargaining partner, the Mining, Chemical and Energy Industrial Trade Union (IG BCE), on a new collective agreement for the hard coal industry. The objective is to replace the collective bargaining regulations for the industry that were concluded to cover traditional mining activities with a modern framework for the changed tasks of post-mining.

The German Hard Coal Mining Association (GVSt) was founded in 1968 as a federation of what were at that time regional associations of companies in German hard coal mining. Since its establishment, the GVSt has performed association tasks that were oriented to the general conditions for hard coal. In this role, it played a part in blazing the path to an orderly and socially acceptable end to German hard coal mining. In 2007, it began acting as the bargaining agent in lieu of the Business Association Hard Coal (UVSt) and changed its name to the short form Hard Coal Mining Association (GVSt) that had previously been established in common use. The merger of the long-established Association for Mining Interests (VbI) with the GVSt in 2009 completed the consolidation of the German hard coal mining industry’s cooperative organisations. The sharper focus on specific tasks and the organisation’s renaming as the Industry Association for Hard Coal and Post-Mining are the next steps in its adaptation to the general conditions in hard coal mining as the industry enters the post-mining era. (bsn/Si.)

The German Coal Association (GVSt) is mourning the loss of Dr.-Ing. E.h. Wilhelm Beermann, its Honorary President and Deputy Chairman, who died on 5th August at the age of 84.

Wilhelm Beermann spent his entire professional life in the service of the coal and lignite mining industries and their employees. Throughout this time he always spoke up for those toiling at heavy manual tasks and was tireless in defending their interests when management decisions were being made.

Wilhelm Beermann was born into a mining family in Gelsenkirchen in 1936. In 1951 he started training in industrial sales at Holland colliery, which was owned by Rheinelbe Bergbau AG. He soon became involved in the IG Bergbau mining union and in the Christian-Democratic Employees Association. In 1969 he was appointed Head of Social Affairs at Bergbau AG Westfalen. Then in 1984 he joined the management board of Bergbau AG Niederrhein as Labour Relations Director.

After an intervening period of four years spent on the board of lignite producers Rheinische Braunkohlenwerke AG he returned to the hard coal industry in 1990 as Employee Relations Director at the RAG Aktiengesellschaft and in 1997 he also took on the role of RAG Deputy Chairman. The following year he was appointed the first Chairman of the Board of the newly formed Deutsche Steinkohle AG.

From 2001 to 2019 Wilhelm Beermann resumed his relationship with the lignite industry when he became Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Central German Lignite Mining Company MIBRAG.

Wilhelm Beermann was guide and mentor to the GVSt for many years and in 1997 he joined the GVSt Management Board as Deputy Chairman. His activities in this area extended beyond national boundaries and during his time as President of the European umbrella organisation CECSO (the European Solid Fuels Association) a number of major decisions were taken on the follow-up regulations to be adopted after the expiry of the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty.

On the occasion of his 70th birthday in 2006 the Management Board of the GVSt appointed Wilhelm Beermann Honorary President of the German Coal Association as a token of its gratitude for his singular commitment to the coal industry and to its employees.

A long list of honours and awards mark the significance of his life’s work. TH Georg Agricola University in Bochum made him an Honorary Senator and RWTH Aachen University awarded him an honorary doctorate. Wilhelm Beermann’s voluntary work both inside and outside the coal industry was recognised at national level with the conferment of the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.

With the passing of Wilhelm Beermann the Association has lost an outstanding figure and a counsellor of discernment and good judgement. We will forever hold his memory in the highest esteem.

Michael Kalthoff
President
German Coal Association (GVSt)

Michael Weberink
CEO
German Coal Association (GVSt)

At a meeting on the 13th September 2019, the Gesamtverband Steinkohle e. V. (GVSt), Essen/Germany, took the decision to scale down its executive board. The long-serving board members Jürgen Eikhoff, Rainer Platzek and Michael G. Ziesler have stepped down from their mandate. The principal managing director of the association Michael Weberink has been newly appointed to the board as an executive member.

Supervisory Board, Board of Management, Works Council and employees of RAG Aktiengesellschaft and the Gesamtverband Steinkohle e. V. (GVSt, German Coal Association) are in mourning for Prof. Dr. Gerhard Neipp. From 1995 to 1999, he was the Chairman of the Board of RAG, and also a member of the Board of the German Coal Association (GVSt), of which he was President from 1997 to 1999.

Neipp passed away on 16th July 2019 at the age of 79. His period of office saw the merging of the entire German coal mining industry in the RAG subsidiary Deutsche Steinkohle AG (DSK), of which he became Chairman of the Supervisory Board. During this period, RAG developed to become an internationally operating and respected corporation. In addition, Prof. Dr. Gerhard Neipp made a decisive contribution to finding a compromise in coal policy between politics, business and workforce representatives in 1997, which also guaranteed social compatibility for future mine closures.

“The name of Gerhard Neipp will thus forever be linked with the socially compatible adaptation of German coal mining,” said RAG Chairman of the Board Peter Schrimpf in appreciation of his services. (RAG/Si.)

On 23rd January 2019, the Hard Coal -Association (GVSt), Essen/Germany, hosted “200 years of industrial coal mining in Germany”. Jürgen-Johann Rupp, President of the GVSt and Member of the Board at RAG Aktiengesellschaft, welcomed around 150 attendees to the Casino restaurant on the Zollverein former mining complex (Figure 1).

In his opening speech, President of the German Industrial Union for Mining, Chemicals and Energy (IG BCE), Michael Vassiliadis, made reference to the guiding principles for implementing the structural changes in the former mining areas. He explained that climate and energy policy were not the same thing and that the regional governments of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Saarland and the federal government therefore needed an “energy policy compass” to help them make the right decisions.

Professor Bert Rürup, Head of the Handelsblatt Research Institute (HRI), presented the Coal Factbook put together by his institute on behalf of RAG and GVSt. He underlined the importance of the coal mining industry as the driving force behind industrialisation. He also warned that the wrong political conclusions must not be drawn from the withdrawal from the coal mining industry. The Ruhr region must draw on its existing strengths, namely health economics, logistics and environmental economics. A round table chaired by Professor Stefan Berger from the Ruhr University in Bochum (RUB), with Bärbel Bergerhoff-Wodopia, Member of the Board of Executives of the RAG-Stiftung, Karola Geiß-Netthöfel, Regional Director of the Regionalverband Ruhr (RVR) and Professor Jörg Bogumil, Chair of Public Administration, Urban and Regional Policy at the RUB, discussed possible ways of implementing this.

At the end of 2018, both RAG and GVSt were able to look back on a 50-year history. Managing Director of the association, Michael Weberink made special mention of this. GVSt Honorary President Wilhelm Beermann’s recollections of key events surrounding coal policy from this period were a particular highlight (Figure 2). (Si.)

With effect from 24th May 2018, Jürgen-Johann Rupp, Member of the Board at RAG Aktiengesellschaft, Essen/Germany, was elected as the new President of the Gesamt-verband Steinkohle e. V., Essen/Germany. He replaces Bernd Tönjes, the new Chairman of the Board at RAG-Stiftung Essen/Germany, who stepped down from both the GVSt and his role as the Chairman of the Board at RAG Aktien-gesellschaft on 23rd May 2018.

Prof. Dr. Franz-Josef Wodopia is to leave his position as Managing Director and Chief Executive of Gesamtverband Steinkohle e. V. (GVSt) in Herne on 31st December 2015. The company’s new Chief Executive will be lawyer Michael Weberink, who has been a Member of the Management Board at GVSt since March 2015.

Elmar Milles, Director of Legal/Welfare/Wages and Salaries at the German Coal Association (GVSt), resigned his post on 28 February 2015 and has entered semi- retirement. He will continue to serve as Director of the Bochumer Verband and of the Unfallschadenverband. He is succeeded at GVSt by Michael Weberink, formerly legal advisor at GVSt, who took up his new post on 1 March 2015.