Documents Haipeter, Thomas 55 results

"This article analyses working conditions and attitudes of white-collar workers in the manufacturing sector as well as the efforts of trade unions to organise this group of employees in three European countries – Finland, France and Germany. Organising white-collar workers has become a major issue for manufacturing trade unions because of their growing proportion in the sector's workforce. The study is based on an analysis of European secondary data sets, a survey on white-collar attitudes and, finally, on workshops with trade unionists in the countries investigated. Although white-collar workers traditionally are said to be reluctant to join trade unions, ambivalence towards their working conditions and rather positive assessments of trade unions offer some starting points for organising. Trade unions have developed different activities to organise white-collar workers, which are closely related to the different institutional and organisational conditions in which they operate. These activities still lack strategic decisions to prioritise white-collar organising."

This work is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

"This paper analyses the impacts of globalisation on the systems of industrial relations in the motor industry in a comparative perspective. Globalisation, in the form of the global reorganisation of the value chain, has been a key development in this industry since the 1990s. This development has been characterised by the creation of global production networks at the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), the final producers, the internal reorganisation of the companies, involving higher productive flexibility, decentralisation and financialisation, and the restructuring of the value chain, involving a reduction of vertical integration and new forms of network relationships between OEMs and their suppliers. These developments raise a number of questions: Are regime competition and reorganisation undermining national or industry labour standards? What types of standards are in danger and to what extent? Or are there existing or emergent counter forces that can weaken or even prevent a process of erosion of these standards? In order to address these questions, this paper investigates the contents, forms and levels of collective agreements, the roles and strategies of the actors in collective bargaining and possible fragmentations along the value chain. This is achieved by means of a comparative analysis of the developments in four countries: Germany, Italy, Spain and Hungary."

"Dekarbonisierung und Digitalisierung gelten als die zen-tralen Handlungsfelder sozialer und wirtschaftlicher Transformationen. Zwischen beiden Handlungsfeldern werden Wechselwirkungen vermutet : So kann auf der einen Seite die Dekarbonisierung möglicherweise vom Innovationsschub durch digitale Vernetzung und neue Technologien der Datennutzung profitieren ; auf der ande-ren Seite kann die Digitalisierung jedoch durch eine hohe Energie- und Rohstoffvernutzung selbst eine ökologische Gefahr darstellen. 1 Beide Prozesse lassen sich aufgrund ihrer zeitlichen Parallelität als „doppelte Transformation“ verstehen, die große Umstrukturierungsmaßnahmen für die deutschen Industrieunternehmen mit sich bringen kann, mit denen wiederum Herausforderungen für deren soziale Bewältigung und die politische Koordinierung und Konzertierung einhergehen. Dies gilt vor allem mit Blick auf die Sicherung von nachhaltiger Produktion in Schlüsselindustrien mit guten Arbeitsplätzen. Dafür wie-derum dürften die Fähigkeiten und Qualifikationen der Beschäftigten eine zentrale Ressource sein..."

"Employee participation at company level is one of the core institutions of what can be called the ‘European social model', based on national regulations and regulations at EU level, such as the directives on European Works Councils (EWCs) and the Societas Europaea (SE). This process of institutionalisation coincides with fundamental changes in the current era of globalisation and transformation, which increase the importance of the company level for employee participation. We argue that this development highlights the problem of articulation within the multi-level system of employee participation. By comparing institutions of participation at national – we include the cases of France, Germany, Spain and Sweden – and at EU level we analyse whether and how these institutions create opportunities to influence company decisions by giving voice to workers' representatives. In doing so we identify good practices and, on that basis, develop policy recommendations to strengthen the articulation of employee representation at company level."

"Profit sharing wages are of growing importance in Germany. They are indicating a nascent trend of financialisation of wages. However, little is known about the regulation of profit sharing wages especially on plant level and the way they affect the policies of works councils. Plant level wage policy is a subject of codetermination according to the German Works Constitutions Act, and wage policy has always been one of the most crucial topics of works councils' activities. What is the role works councils play regarding the negotiation and regulation of profit sharing wages? What is the collective interest they define and pursue in this respect? And what are the effects of wage financialisation on the legitimacy of works councils? These questions are analysed with respect to the development of profit sharing wages in the German metalworking industry. Based on a variety of research methods, our analysis shows that profit sharing wages are a source of legitimacy for the works councils. In many cases the works councils, usually regarded as victims of financialisation, are actively striving for the financialisation of wages in their companies. However, they have to cope with the problem that profit sharing nowadays is based on a redistribution of income between capital and labour, between firms and between different categories of employees."

"Industrieangestellte nehmen an Zahl und Bedeutung zu. Nicht nur stellen sie inzwischen die Haelfte der Beschaeftigten in den Kernbranchen der Industrie, sie besetzen auch wichtige Positionen in den betrieblichen Hierarchien mit hohem Primaermachtpotenzial. Die Mobilisierung und Organisierung von Industrieangestellten als Waehler, Kompetenztraeger und Mitglieder entscheidet deshalb ueber die Zukunftsfaehigkeit der Interessenvertretungen in den Industriebranchen. Waehrend frueheren angestelltenpolitischen Ansaetzen der Gewerkschaften wenig Erfolg beschieden war, sind in juengerer Zeit von Gewerkschaften und Betriebsraeten neue Initiativen der Angestelltenpolitik entwickelt worden. Diese werden im vorliegenden Beitrag anhand betrieblicher Fallbeispiele untersucht. Die Initiativen haben unterschiedliche thematische Schwerpunkte; gemeinsam ist ihnen jedoch, dass darin die Betriebsraete neue Formen der Rekrutierung und der Arbeitsteilung in den Gremien entwickeln und dass sie Laboratorien neuer Formen der Beteiligung von Beschaeftigten einrichten. Interessenvertretungen gewinnen an Bedeutung als Berater und Helfer zur Selbsthilfe. Gewerkschaftliche Organisationswirkungen stehen und fallen mit der Rolle der Gewerkschaft in lokalen Konflikten und ihrer Organisierungsstrategie."