Union Renewal and Business Strategies - Strategic Codetermination of Works Councils and the Campaign “Better Not Cheaper” of the German Metalworkers’ Union

Abstract

The trade union campaign "Better not cheaper" of the German metalworkers' union IG Metall is one of the most famous attempts of union revitalization in Germany and at the same time a new approach of unions to influence business strategies. Focusing on the activation of works councils, the aim of the campaign is to cope with the problem of disorganized decentralization of collective bargaining by developing concepts for a renewal of business strategies in the firms. The paper is based on a research project recently finished. In the project 16 case studies of plants which have been part of the campaign have been made and a survey among union locals was conducted. The paper analyzes the effects of the campaign on works councils' codetermination, on labor relations and on business strategies. The author concludes that the results of the campaign have been mixed up to now. On the one hand, the campaign has proven to be successful in activating the works councils to challenge management concepts, to enhance competencies and resources and, most important, to develop new forms of expert participation of employees. On the other hand, the scope of strategic codetermination and of the renewal of business concepts has been rather narrow, and membership effects for the union have been only sporadic and indirect. Therefore, the campaign should provide strategic competencies for the works councils more systematically, and the fight for new business strategies should go hand in hand with membership campaigns in the plants.

Organizing Matters

“…Following the campaign for equal pay to agency workers, workplace concessions also included measures to expand protection and enhance solidarity among the workforce, which were extended to agency workers (Benassi 2015). At later stages, negotiations were framed as advancing better, not cheaper, forms of local industrial relations at the company level, tying concession to a change in investment policy, and securing long-term goals that can also benefit the workers' employability and well-being in the future (Haipeter 2013;Haipeter et al 2018). Hence, despite the framing of derogation as a weakness of the current German industrial relations system, and its counter-framing as a virtue of coordinated decentralization (OECD 2018), and without resolving the debates on such framing, it is used as a shell for integrating power resources, gaining legitimacy from employers and activating workers along the logic of the organizing approach (Turner 2009;Haipeter 2013).…”

Integrating direct employee voice within the framework of worker representation: The role of an Italian trade union in organising disintermediation

“…7 Furthermore, there emerged consensus among Brescia’s unionists on the important role that direct employee participation could play in ‘giving value to the work of people, after decades of dehumanisation in Fordist environments, and devising a new identity of blue-collars within society’. 8 Overall, by impacting on both the (internally-oriented) logic of organising , especially in the form of ‘member (and workers’ representative) activism’ (Nicklich and Helfen, 2019) as may be suited to partly unionised settings (Behrens, 2009; Haipeter, 2013), and the (externally-oriented) logic of partnership , with unions as co-directors of labour–management experiences of direct employee voice, organised disintermediation ended up integrating both conceptual alternatives and challenging managers as the sole advocates of direct employee voice.…”

Vernieuwing en hybridisering van medezeggenschap in bedrijvenHet onderzoek waarop dit artikel zich baseert is mede uitgevoerd door Evert Smit, Simone van Houten en Robbert van het Kaar. Het onderzoeksproject is financieel mogelijk gemaakt door Instituut Gak.

“…Daarnaast kunnen vormen van vertegenwoordigende en directe medezeggenschap met elkaar worden verbonden, zoals in de lange internationale traditie van de sociotechniek (De Spiegelaere & Van Gyes, 2015). Of in de meer recente praktijk binnen Duitse bedrijven, waarbij Betriebsräte initiatieven hebben ontwikkeld om directe participatie van minder door de or en vakbond vertegenwoordigde medewerkersgroepen te structuren in werk-en projectgroepen (Haipeter, 2013(Haipeter, , 2016. Een ander knelpunt is dat voor flexwerkers weinig plaats is in het medezeggenschapsmodel, terwijl bedrijven daar steeds meer gebruik van maken (Verbiest & Pot, 2017).…”