Documents Brandl, Bernd 29 results

"This article provides an overview of academic and public policy debates on the role and effects of collective bargaining. The motivation behind this article is that the academic and political debate is – and ever was – characterized by many controversies. It is explained that these controversies often arise because of different disciplinary, theoretical and empirical approaches. It will also be outlined how the empirical and theoretical debates influenced the Zeitgeist in public policy making. Hence, the article provides an overview of the knowledge on the role and effects of collective bargaining as well as how this knowledge influenced and guided (or not) politically initiated institution building and reforms of collective bargaining systems."

"Conventional wisdom regards wage regulation as uncoordinated across Europe. In relation to advanced economic integration, this implies a ‘suboptimal' wage area, which led to many conjectures about its consequences, ranging from disorganization of collective bargaining to adverse macroeconomic effects. This article tests the wage linkages between Germany and the Nordic countries on time series data for the metal industry. The findings show that organized, transnationally coordinated wage policies characterize these countries: Convergence in pay rates results from both economic developments and coordination of transnational bargaining through the pattern-setting role of the German bargainers. These transnational wage policies require the consequences of European integration to be reconsidered for wage regulation and its economic effects. "

"Das System der Arbeitsbeziehungen in Deutschland stützt sich auf die Existenz repräsentativer Verbände kollektiver Interessensvertretungen. In Deutschland ist die Repräsentativität von Arbeitgeberverbänden im europäischen Vergleich (noch) vergleichsweise hoch. Ziel des Beitrags ist zum einen, eine Standortbestimmung der Repräsentativität der verbandlichen Interessensvertretung der Arbeitgeberseite vorzunehmen, und zum Zweiten, die Gründe für die Repräsentativität zu analysieren. Dabei zeigt sich, dass der gegenwärtig hohe Grad an Repräsentativität von Arbeitgeberverbänden wesentlich davon abhängt, wie und ob es der Arbeitgeberseite möglich ist, die Interessen ihrer Mitglieder gegenüber dem Staat durchzusetzen."

"This article presents a critique of the ‘methodological nationalism' of traditional comparative industrial relations. It investigates nine different sectors across the 27 EU member states on the basis of seven empirical indicators. It is found that industrial relations vary across sectors as deeply as they do across countries, and that a cluster analysis of sectoral industrial relations produces very different results from one at national aggregate level. The concept of ‘national model' of industrial relations, implying coherence and homogeneity within countries, and geographical typologies of industrial relations ‘types', are therefore put in question. The article concludes by pointing at the theoretical and methodological implications of a focus on the sector as an important level of analysis. "

"Strong exposed-sector unions and weak public-sector unions are seen as having beneficial effects on macroeconomic performance. Although these effects must work through the bargaining structure, the interaction with union composition is unclarified. This paper argues that the interaction effect qualitatively differs with the bargaining type. The findings show that the performance of pattern bargaining significantly increases with growing exposed-sector union strength whereas uncoordinated bargaining and centrally coordinated bargaining do not interact with union composition."

"This article discusses the implications of the current economic crisis for the interaction of economic policy and labour relations. Its structure distinguishes between four phases of economic policy: Keynesianism; the conversion to orthodox economics; economic policy under accelerating market integration; and current crisis management. For each of the phases the impact of economic policy on the involvement of organized interests in public policy, inter- and intra-class relations, the labour-relations institutions, their feedbacks and performance is discussed. The article concludes that the extent to which coordinated bargaining and its actors enjoy state sponsorship may make the difference between stability and disintegration, and whatever changes will occur, they will increase cross national heterogeneity."

"Diese Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, weshalb die industriellen Beziehungen in einigen Sektoren durch einen hohen Grad an transnationaler Homogenität charakterisiert sind, währenddessen andere Sektoren sich in ihren industriellen Beziehungen über Ländergrenzen hinweg stark unterscheiden. Basierend auf der Theorie einer Transformation der industriellen Beziehungen entlang veränderter Marktbedingungen wird in dieser Arbeit die Hypothese untersucht, dass das Ausmaß der sektoralen Internationalisierung transnational homogene sektorale Systeme der industriellen Beziehungen bedingt. Auf Grundlage einer empirischen Untersuchung von neun Sektoren in allen Mitgliedsländern der Europäischen Union kann diese Hypothese bestätigt werden. Die Ergebnisse der Arbeit erlauben die Schlussfolgerung, dass eine transnationale Konvergenz in den industriellen Beziehungen sektorspezifisch ist und dass Arbeiten im Bereich der ländervergleichenden industriellen Beziehungen verstärkt der sektoralen Ebene Beachtung schenken müssen. "

"Recent debates on pacts have focused on the prerequisites for their emergence, whereas questions of their efficacy have receded into the background. In particular, systematic analyses of the effectiveness of pacts in terms of their capacity to enhance economic performance are missing. The aim of this article is therefore to assess the economic impact of pacts. As the majority of pacts concern wages, the assessment will concentrate on a comparison of the performance of pacts with alternative governance mechanisms for wage policies, that is, alternative pay-setting modes. The findings show that when wage pacts are endowed with the ability to govern lower-level pay determination, they are better at enhancing economic performance than other forms of coordination"