Recht und Politik beim Wandel des deutschen Flächentarifs. Juristen als politische Akteure im System der Arbeitsbeziehungen

Abstract

Der Beitrag ist anschlussfähig an die Literatur zum institutionellen Wandel, zur Rechtspolitologie und zur Wissenspolitologie. Er untersucht die Rolle des rechtswissenschaftlichen Diskurses und des Bundesarbeitsgerichts beim Wandel des deutschen Flächentarifs. Eine wichtige Quelle institutionellen Wandels liegt im Spannungsfeld zwischen Regeln und ihrer Anwendung. Eine Institution wird niemals reproduziert, sondern die Akteure müssen sie durch Deutungsleistungen erschließen. Juristen nehmen dabei eine Schlüsselstellung ein, weil sie Interpretationen über die Bedeutung und den Geltungsbereich einer Regel anbieten. Dabei ist die Möglichkeit des inkrementellen Wandels angelegt. Dies wird am Beispiel des Wandels im deutschen Tarifsystem gezeigt.

Social dumping cases in the Swedish Labour Court in the wake of Laval, 2004–2010

“…Korpi held this view because the case descriptions provide insights into what is really happening in the labour market and which rules really apply, beyond the written rules; the parallel to the recent institutionalist debate referred to in the first section of the article is clear (cf. Rehder, 2006;Thelen, 2009). By studying the Labour Court case descriptions, one can gain knowledge about the workings of the Swedish labour market that would not otherwise be accessible; as also mentioned earlier, with this material one can discuss the qualitative implications of European labour market integration and worker mobility for the Swedish labour market, rather than focusing solely on the quantitative implications, as have been discussed in papers that have examined the numbers or the size of worker flows (Doyle et al, 2006;Gerdes and Wadensjö, 2008).…”

“…Since the Labour Court sets case law for the labour market, its decisions are important and changes to the laws are not required to change the institutions of the labour market; changing case law is enough (cf. Rehder, 2006). The study is delimited to Labour Court cases that concern migrant European Union workers working in Sweden.…”

“…Two decades or so ago it was common to make inferences on issues such as the strength of organized labour or the convergence or divergence of industrial relations systems based on such quantitative indicators, but recent research on institutional change has pointed to the weakness of this approach: institutions and systems that look the same on the surface and on macro indicators might actually have changed a lot in their functions and in what kinds of outcomes they contribute to (Baccaro and Howell, 2011;Howell and Kolins Givan, 2011;Thelen, 2009Thelen, , 2012. Rehder (2006) provides an important example in her study of the decentralization of the German labour market. She shows that collective bargaining coverage is still high, but that the increasing prevalence of local opt-out clauses means that the nominally high bargaining coverage simply does not have as strong a binding effect on wages as it used to have.…”

“…This is a good example of how important changes in the labour market may not be visible if we only look at macro aggregates and quantitative variables. Rehder (2006;cf. Thelen, 2009: 487) highlights the importance both of legal cases concerning the implementation of collectively bargained agreements and, more generally, labour law in achieving such incremental -but cumulatively transformative -institutional change.…”

“…This article aims to contribute to this literature on institutional change in the labour market by highlighting micro-level renegotiations of the regulations that pertain to the Swedish labour market: conflicts between companies and unions, which via the case law function of the Labour Court become important for the entire labour market model. The article does not itself develop institutional theory, but it does offer fascinating and potentially important empirical illustrations of the kind of institutional change theorized in recent institutional research (Baccaro and Howell, 2011;Howell and Kolins Givan, 2011;Rehder, 2006;Thelen, 2009Thelen, , 2012.…”