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D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E SIZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. This paper investigates the interaction between establishment-level codetermination and industry-level collective bargaining in Germany. Based on a simple bargaining model we derive our main hypothesis: In establishments covered by collective bargaining agreements works councils are more likely to be engaged in productivity enhancing activities and less engaged in rent seeking activities than their counterparts in uncovered firms. Using data from German manufacturing establishments, our empirical analysis confirms this hypothesis. The presence of works councils exerts a positive impact on productivity within the covered industrial relations regime but not within the uncovered industrial relations regime. In contrast, the presence of works councils has a positive effect on wages within the uncovered industrial relations regime but not to the same degree within the covered industrial relations regime. A related question has been investigated by FitzRoy and Kraft (1990). In their study the interaction of works councils with union density exerts a negative impact on the firm's innovative activities. However, the focus of our approach is not on the interaction of works councils with the proportion of the firm...
Some recent empirical studies seem to suggest that German works councils engage in rent-seeking activities rather than in the creation of joint establishment surplus. However, those cross-sectional studies do not address the issue of causation. We address this issue by investigating the factors that influence the employees' decision to introduce a works council in their establishment. Councils are more likely to be adopted in establishments with a very poor sales situation and poor employment growth. They are also more likely to be adopted in establishments where management does not pursue an expansive market strategy. Altogether, our results support the hypothesis that employees introduce works councils to protect the quasi-rents they have created by their efforts and human capital investments. Copyright (c) Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2009.
This paper provides the first econometric analysis to distinguish between works councils in establishments where managers have a positive or negative view toward employee involvement in decision making. We similarly distinguish between establishments where no council is present in which management supports or does not support worker participation. We stress the potential role of works councils and participation in motivating employees. Our theoretical analysis and empirical results from German manufacturing establishment data show that the structure of the workforce, principal-agent problems between owners and managers, collective bargaining, direct employee involvement, human resource management practices, and market strategy and innovativeness all play important roles. Some conflicting conclusions in the works council literature may be due to the failure to distinguish among industrial relations participation regimes characterized by cooperative or uncooperative relationships between works councils and management. * The authors' affiliations are, respectively,
We argue that firms with interdependent worker productivity, team production, have a higher cost of absence and, as a consequence, spend additional resources on monitoring absence. As a result, firms with team production should have lower absence rates. We estimate the determinants of absence for blue-collar workers using a sample of German manufacturing establishments. Workplace teams are used as a proxy for team production. The estimates reveal that firms with teams have lower absence rates, as do smaller establishments. The size effect, however, is unique to establishments with teams, which fits prior theoretical work that has not been previously tested.
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The determinants of three employer‐provided family‐friendly work practices are estimated for German establishments. The presence of a works council stands as a positive determinant of all three practices. When works councils exist in the presence of collective bargaining, their influence tends to reflect the demographics of the workplace. The role of the works council becomes larger when the share of women increases and the share of part‐timers decreases. We suggest this is consistent with the voice role of works councils.
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