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-Workers Voice is widely present among the largest 100 firms in Europe. 90 % of the largest firms participate in collective bargaining (CBA), 73 % have a European Works Council (EWC) and 44 % have Board-Level Employee Representation (BLER). 27 % have a European Company Agreement (ECA), and 23 % an International Framework Agreement (IFA). The data set allows three broad conclusions: - First, Workers Voice is mostly cumulative. Companieswith BLER always participate in collective bargaining and generally have a higher percentage of other forms of Workers Voice in place than companies without BLER. Companies with BLER and CBA in place also almost always have at least one European Works Council in place and, in 40.9 % of the firms, also at least one European Company Agreement.- Second, Board-Level Employee Representation and collective bargaining seem to strengthen good corporate governance. Companies with BLER offered considerably lower remuneration packages within the company than companies without BLER. Companies without BLER as well as companies without CBA spent, on average, significantly more money on the highest remuneration packages than companies with BLER andCBA present and companies with only CBA present. Companies with BLER are associated with a lower influence of a single biggest owner.- Third, companies with strong Workers Voice show better performance compared to those without. Companies with both BLER and CBA have higher market value as well as higher net sales.
The scientific final report describes the topics that have been worked on by the Böckler expert group on Workers Voice: Good scientific arguments for anchoring it more strongly and legally binding to the benefit of "good corporate governance". In the supervisory and executive bodies of cross-border operating companies in Europe.
The European Union (EU) literature sees increasing market liberalization as a challenge for models of national capitalism. EU liberalization, it is argued, erodes national employment regimes and social protection. However, other scholars highlight the ability of national institutions to reinvent themselves. This contribution assesses these claims by exploring an extreme case of labour market pressure driven by EU liberalization. Focusing on the meat production sector, it shows that low-wage labour migration has affected employment conditions in the meat production sector in Germany and Denmark in different ways: dualization has made Germany a destination country for low-wage work; in contrast, union solidarity in Denmark has kept wages high and Danish meat producers have outsourced work to Germany. The underlying industrial relations systems have shaped actors’ responses to the use of migrant labour.
Is there a "winner-take-all" politics in the affluent democracies of Northern Europe? We explore this question through a comparison of two cases of "regulated capitalism," Sweden and Germany, asking whether these institutions continue to produce equitable outcomes in the face of globalization and financial crisis. Both countries have experienced significant increases in income inequality since 1990, and their labor markets have begun to display signs of dualism, demonstrating the weakened capacity of regulated capitalism to secure equality. Despite these broad similarities, inequality and labor market dualism have increased more in Germany than in Sweden. We argue that the shift to the right, even among social democratic parties, is an important cause of increased inequality in both countries. Our analysis also emphasizes the political effects of decades of welfare state building in both countries: the popularity of the welfare state and other institutions of regulated capitalism among the electorate constrain the ability of governments to pursue a radical liberalization agenda. We attribute Sweden’s superior performance relative to Germany in protecting low income groups to the interaction of industrial relations institutions and the electoral system. Swedish corporatism has retained much of its encompassingness compared to Germany, and proportional representation in Sweden creates incentives for the Center-Left to include the interests of low-income groups in their electoral and governing strategies. In contrast, German industrial relations are increasingly marked by segmentalism, and the electoral system generates few incentives for the Center-Left to include low income groups in their electoral coalition.
Even though the financial crisis has strong negative effects for the labour market, trade unions have not gained support. Globalization, the service economy and the new orientation of the centre-left have contributed to the marginalization of trade unions worldwide. Trade unions as forces for social justice in a highly insecure and unjust environment have to shift towards a more comprehensive approach including supply side policies and addressing the concerns of young people and labour market outsiders in order to stop their demise
Politicians, economists, and social theorists tend to agree that globalization and neo-liberal economic policy have contributed to the decline of the social compacts underlying traditional European welfare states. Recently, however, social pacts have demonstrated an impressive resurgence, as governments across Europe facing necessary economic policy adjustments have chosen to view trade unions as vital negotiating partners rather than adversaries. Wage Setting, Social Pacts, and the Euro offers a theoretical understanding of the forces that have led to this new understanding, and of the challenges that increasing monetary integration will continue to pose.
The paper argues that there are two dimensions of internationalization: one which refers to the production activities of firms abroad and one which focuses on the corporate governance dimension of firms. While the first one is well known in the literature on internationalization, the financial dimension has not yet been addressed empirically. At the same time there are indicators that financial internationalization is gaining importance. Using a sample of the 100 largest German companies it shows that both dimensions, the real and the financial dimension, do not co‐vary and therefore cannot be combined into one index.
Twenty Years after German Unification: The Restructuring of the German Welfare and Employment Regime
(2010)
German unification acted as a catalyst for the substantial transformation of the German welfare and employment regime which has taken place over the last two decades. The changes can be described as a process of a partial liberalization of the labor market within the boundaries of a coordinated industrial relations system and a conservative welfare state. This article depicts the transformation as a trend towards a more liberal welfare and employment regime by focusing on the shifting boundaries between status and income maintenance and poor relief systems.