Documents Zagelmeyer, Stefan 13 results

"In the last two decades there has been a considerable amount of rhetoric about an alleged need to subvert established industrial relations systems for the sake of economic performance. Western Europe's Coordinated Market Economies (CMEs) have been the main target of debates centred on the question of whether a more liberal market economy is needed to increase wealth. Using the Netherlands as a case study, this paper tries to shed light on the need for change in the industrial relations systems of CMEs, and connects this discussion to the fundamental issue of innovation, a precondition for economic performance. We find that the Dutch industrial relations system does not hamper innovation and economic performance. However, while centralized and coordinated labour organizations (i.e., unions) cooperate with employers' associations and the government to respond to economic changes, their role in proactive, future-directed innovation calls for improvement."

"Between autumn 2008 and spring 2010, the German economy faced the most serious economic downturn since World War II. Demand, orders, output and profits declined in many sectors and for many companies at unprecedented rates. The German federal government, the state governments and the social partners have introduced and/or adapted a wide range of policy instruments to cope with the crisis. In addition to unilateral use by management of a wide range of policies to address the declining demand for products and labour, joint activities on the part of management, trade unions and/or works councils sought to address the situation through agreements on cost-cutting programmes. This article analyses four cases of company-level ‘concession' bargaining during the peak time of the crisis (2009) in Germany and considers how the social partners might help enterprises to maintain employment in the face of a crisis situation. "

"Between 2008 and 2010, the German economy faced the most serious economic downturn since the Second World War. The German Federal government, the state governments and the social partners have introduced and/or adapted a wide range of policy instruments to cope with the situation. Companies affected by the crisis have applied a number of adjustment policies, ranging from the exploration of new markets to wage reductions to redundancies. This article reports on and analyses the impact of the global financial crisis at company level, focussing on management responses among those establishments that were affected by the crisis. Drawing on representative data form the German Job Vacancy Survey, it investigates internal and external influences on the company's choice of establishment-specific adjustment policies."

" During the 1990s, company or plant-level collective agreements on employment and competitiveness were forged at most car producers in the European Union. These pacts aim at maintaining or creating jobs and at improving the competitiveness of the plant or company in intra-conglomerate as well as inter-company competition. This paper analyses these employment pacts and discusses their implications for labour relations. It concludes that these pacts should not just be seen as examples of concession bargaining, but rather as emerging forms of cooperative labour relations, focusing on adjusting the governance of the employment relationship to the imperatives of joint competitive success. "

"Both Britain and Germany have experienced a substantial decline in collective bargaining coverage in recent decades, though coverage is lower in Britain. Whereas multi-employer bargaining predominates in Germany, single-employer bargaining is more important in Britain. Econometric analyses show that similar variables play a statistically significant role in explaining the structure of collective bargaining in both countries; these include establishment size and age, foreign ownership, public sector affiliation and subsidiary status."