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Hagen Lesch / Helena Bach / Sandra Vogel IW-Policy Paper No. 11 8. December 2023 Collective bargaining autonomy in a crisis of legitimacy?

In Germany, the employers recognised the trade unions as the appointed representatives of the employees in November 1918.

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Collective bargaining autonomy in a crisis of legitimacy?
Hagen Lesch / Helena Bach / Sandra Vogel IW-Policy Paper No. 11 8. December 2023

Collective bargaining autonomy in a crisis of legitimacy?

German Economic Institute (IW) German Economic Institute (IW)

In Germany, the employers recognised the trade unions as the appointed representatives of the employees in November 1918.

This introduced collective bargaining autonomy. Since then, it has been observed that the state monitors and sometimes steers the collective bargaining process. This behaviour can be explained by using a Principal Agent Model as an analytical framework. The state acts like a princal, while the social partners behave like agents. While the state leaves the regulation of wages and working conditions to the social partners, it expects their loyalty in return. In this sense, collective bargaining autonomy must legitimise itself by beeing useful. An analysis of historical debates since 1918 shows: If the social partners do not contribute to the economic and social policy objectives of the state, the state uses various steering instruments to restore their loyalty and ensure the usefullness of collective bargaining autonomy. Overall, some learning processes and a high degree of path dependency of the institutional framework can be observed. The learning processes show the state should strengthen and not weaken social partners‘ responsibility in the event of future steering of collective bargaining autonomy.

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Collective bargaining autonomy in a crisis of legitimacy?
Hagen Lesch / Helena Bach / Sandra Vogel IW-Policy Paper No. 11 8. December 2023

Collective bargaining autonomy in a crisis of legitimacy?

German Economic Institute (IW) German Economic Institute (IW)

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Proliferation of works councils and the desire for interest representation
Oliver Stettes IW-Report No. 1 19. January 2025

Proliferation of works councils and the desire for interest representation

Works councils exist in 7 per cent of the German establishments with five and more employees. The coverage rate has fallen significantly in the long run. Non-existence of works councils is, however, not equivalent to a lack of participation by the employees.  ...

IW

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Helena Bach / Carolin Denise Fulda IW-Trends No. 3 23. September 2024

Collectively Agreed Wages as an Instrument for Recruiting Skilled Labour?

Companies are increasingly focussing their attention on the recruitment of skilled workers and thus facing the growing challenge of making their job advertisements as attractive as possible.

IW

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