German Industrial Relations in Transition

Abstract

Lowell Turner, Fighting for Partnership, Labor and Politics in Unified Germany, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998, paper £12.95, x+195 pp.

Lowell Turner (ed.), Negotiating the New Germany. Can Social Partnership Survive?, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1997, paper £14.50, xi+271 pp.

A central characteristic of the German industrial relations system until the fall of the Berlin Wall had been its post-war stability and continuity. Indeed it was regarded not only as a significant contributor to Modell Deutschland, meaning the socio-economic and political stability which had marked Germany in the period up to 1990, but also as a model to be imitated and from which other national industrial relations systems might learn. The stability of the German industrial relations system depended on a number of interrelated factors. Firstly, there is a coherent legal framework of labour law giving distinct norms. Legislation defines the parties and outcomes to collective bargaining, the relationship of plant-level industrial negotiations between management and employee representative bodies, such as the works council, and there is an extensive codetermination legislation providing for employee participation. Secondly, employers' associations and trade unions enjoyed over many years a high degree of organisational concentration. The latter are based on the principles of industrial unionism and as these covered extensive industrial sectors the power relationship between trade unions and employers' associations were regulated at sectoral level. Finally, the German system has the distinctive characteristic of a separation of plant-level industrial relations from the sectoral level. The result of these features was to construct a system of industrial relations that demonstrated a high degree of consensus and social partnership, facilitated through mechanisms of consultation and mediation which avoided overt conflict.