By resolution of March 28, 2006 ( 1 ABR 58/04 ), the First Senate decided that the “Christian Metallurgical Union” (CGM) is a union eligible for collective bargaining. According to the Senate’s established case law, an employee association must meet certain minimum requirements in order to be eligible for collective bargaining. It must have set itself the statutory task of representing the interests of its members in their capacity as employees and must be willing to conclude collective agreements. It must be freely formed, free of opponents, independent and organized on an inter-company basis and recognize the applicable collective bargaining law as binding. Furthermore, it is a prerequisite that the employee association can meaningfully fulfill its role as a collective bargaining partner. She must therefore have an assertiveness that allows her to be expected to be recognized and taken seriously by her social counterpart. These judicial requirements regarding the ability to collective bargaining do interfere with the freedom of activity of an employee association. However, the intervention is justified in the interest of functional collective bargaining autonomy. This is designed to compensate for the structural inferiority of individual employees when concluding collective agreements through collective action and thus to enable wages and working conditions to be negotiated with approximately equal importance. Collective bargaining autonomy is therefore constitutionally only available to coalitions that are in a position to meaningfully shape the space of working life left free by the state legal system through collective agreements. This requires unity in the organization and assertiveness towards the social opponent. If an employee association has already concluded collective agreements to a significant extent, this regularly demonstrates its assertiveness. This applies both to the conclusion of original collective agreements and to the conclusion of follow-up collective agreements. The First Senate further decided that the collective bargaining capacity of an employee association for the area of responsibility it claims can only be determined either as a whole or not at all. There is no partial tariff eligibility. If the collective bargaining ability of an employee association were to be assessed differently by region, profession or industry based on its respective power, legal uncertainty would arise that would seriously jeopardize the functionality of collective bargaining autonomy. With every collective agreement, the question would arise as to whether the employee association concluding it has the power to assert itself in the respective geographical or professional area and thus (partial) collective bargaining ability.