Negotiating flexibility: external contracting and working time control in German and Danish telecommunications firms
Doellgast, Virginia ; Berg, Peter
2018
71
1
January
117-142
working time ; flexible working time ; telecommunications ; works council ; codetermination ; call centre ; comparison
Working time and leave
https://doi.org/10.1177/0019793917703659
English
Bibliogr.
" This study examines how different participation rights and structures affect employee control over working time. The analysis is based on a comparison of matched call center and technician workplaces in two major telecommunications firms in Germany and Denmark. It draws on data from semi-structured interviews with managers, supervisors, and employee representatives between 2010 and 2016. Unions and works councils in both firms agreed to a series of concessions on working time policies in the early 2010s in exchange for agreements to halt or reverse outsourcing. The authors use Lukes' concepts of decision-making and agenda-setting power to explain these common trends, as well as later divergence in outcomes. Germany's stronger formal co-determination rights over working time proved a critical power resource for employee representatives as they sought to re-establish employee control in new, more flexible working time models."
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