Leiharbeit. Flexibilität und Prekarität in der betrieblichen Praxis

Promberger, Markus

doi:10.5771/9783845268682-128

Cited by 19 publications

(18 citation statements)

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“…In the workplaces, many works councils do not oppose atypical work, since it enhances flexibility for the firm and grants security to regular workers (Promberger, 2012). In contrast, the Belgian trade union confederations have been actively engaged in regulating atypical work, also incorporating local representatives to support their work.…”

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confidence: 99%

Trade unions and labour market dualisation: a comparison of policies and attitudes towards agency and migrant workers in Germany and Belgium

Pulignano

Meardi

Doerflinger

2015

Work, Employment and Society

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The article addresses the question of the extent to which, and the reasons why, western European trade unions may have privileged the protection of 'insiders' over that of 'outsiders'. Temporary Agency Workers, among whom migrant workers are over-represented, are taken as test case of 'outsiders'. The findings from a comparison of Belgian and German multinational plants show that collective agreements have allowed a protection gap between permanent and agency workers to emerge in Germany, but not in Belgium. However, the weaker protection in Germany depends less on an explicit union choice for insiders than on the weakening of the institutional environment for union representation and collective bargaining. The conclusion suggests that European unions are increasingly trying to defend the outsiders, but meet institutional obstacles that vary by country. This article has three interrelated analytical aims. Firstly, through selected case studies within the same multinational companies affected by the same external pressures, it questions the role of efficiencydriven or rational choice-based explanations for using one extreme form of vulnerable work, namely temporary agency work. The cases illustrate diversity in the organisation of the use of agency labour that cannot be explained by company variables alone and require the consideration of social and political factors. Secondly, the article explores some of these factors by comparing 'most similar' cases, i.e. two neighbouring 'co-ordinated market economies' with similar welfare state models, but where temporary agency workers are subject to very different degrees of protection. The comparison allows to identify the importance of union power and related collective bargaining, and representation systems, and thereby to assess Palier and Thelen's (2010) argument more in depth. Thirdly, we go beyond existing institutional accounts by addressing agency and institutional factors together to tackle the underlying question of the extent to which the unions' role in co-organising dualisation depends on their political choices rather than on the environment they are in. 3The comparative perspective adds to the literature on labour market segmentation and on union responses (Benassi, 2013;Lillie, 2012;Doellgast and Greer, 2007;Hassel 2012), by looking in particular at the implications of power and the influencing factors. We propose to problematize the role of employers and trade unions beyond economic determinism and structural approaches that derive their roles merely from supposedly pre-existing interests. Instead, we pay deeper attention to the socio-political context in which the actors operate and which they concomitantly construct.Thereby, we aim to contribute to debates on social inclusion and dualisation by stressing the crucial role of institutionally situated micro-political games, where actors are strategic 'agents' within a context of power relations.The article is organised as follows. Firstly, segmentation debates are addressed and the rationale of a ...

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confidence: 99%

Trade unions and labour market dualisation: a comparison of policies and attitudes towards agency and migrant workers in Germany and Belgium

Pulignano

Meardi

Doerflinger

2015

Work, Employment and Society

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“…5). Thereafter, the abolishment of a regulation that had banned temping agencies from synchronizing the duration of employment contracts with the length of assignments boosted agency work (Promberger, 2012).…”

Section: The Feedback Effect Of Subcontracting: Mechanisms and Competmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Relational Nature of Employment Dualization: Evidence from Subcontracting Establishments

Ochsenfeld

2018

Preprint

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Scholars argue that the dual path to labor market flexibility protects the privileges of core workers at the expense of employees relegated to a peripheral employment sector. Yet whether core workers indeed benefit from workforce segmentation remains disputed. To scrutinize this question, I study how the wages of core workers with less than college education respond when their employer shifts employment out to subcontractors, using linked employer-employee panel data from Germany. Empirically, I find the effect of subcontracting on average to be either positive or neutral, but not negative. The presence and strength of the positive effect depends, first, on whether the type of subcontracting affords core workers with codetermination rights, second, on whether core workers are represented by a works council to exercise these rights, and, third, on whether these rights are exercised in a context that augments the bargaining position of core workers by rendering conflictual labor relations costly to the employer.2

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“…But this change of the labouring society's face is primarily an effect of fundamental changes in the employment system and the broad introduction of flexible and precarious employment, which secondarily shifts risks and social obligations from employers to society -which in that case means the welfare system. The German (or say conservative) pattern of a postfordist labour society and welfare state seems to be presently completing a change, replacing the structurally persistent unemployment of the 1970s and 1980s by precarious employment to a huge extent, as roughly estimated one fourth of the German labour force is meanwhile employed under nonstandard, mostly precarious labour contracts (Promberger 2012, Sachverständigenrat 2008. And activation policies seem to contribute their share to this, enhancing, regulating and subsidizing the growing segment of unsteady work, especially by forcing the unemployed into non-standard working conditions like low pay contracts, agency work, minijobs and short term contracts.…”

Section: Cuadernos De Relaciones Laboralesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nueve años de hartz iv: evaluación de una reforma del bienestar

Promberger

2015

Cuad. Relac. Lab.

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Nine years ago, Germany has implemented Hartz IV, the last one in a series of welfare state reforms, merging the former separate systems of long term unemployment benefit and basic income support into a new system. The article summarizes the main empirical findings from a growing field and draws a few conclusions. Mainly, after years of heavy debates and practical experiences in Germany and elsewhere, it has to be said the goal of substantially reducing poverty and saving public money has not really been achieved. Although the system is working well in terms of financial support and population coverage, there are problems in providing cultural and social participation, and even the money is not enough under certain family constellations. Moreover, the idea to solve every poverty problem by rigid work first policies does obviously conflict with the observable heterogeneity of poverty situations. Main results are the disappearance of the privileges of persons in long term unemployment, a shift from permanent unemployment to unsteady low wage employment and need for further subsidies for a major part of the poor, as well as a consolidation of the normative image of a 'normal working citizen', making it harder to get support for people who don't fit into that scheme.

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Leiharbeit. Flexibilität und Prekarität in der betrieblichen Praxis

Cited by 19 publications

References 1 publication

Trade unions and labour market dualisation: a comparison of policies and attitudes towards agency and migrant workers in Germany and Belgium

Trade unions and labour market dualisation: a comparison of policies and attitudes towards agency and migrant workers in Germany and Belgium

The Relational Nature of Employment Dualization: Evidence from Subcontracting Establishments

Nueve años de hartz iv: evaluación de una reforma del bienestar

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