Professional unions in Germany: theoretical explanations and practical consequences for industrial relations

Abstract

German

French

This article deals with the unexpected rise of professional unions in Germany. Its focus is on two interrelated questions of theoretical interest, as well as practical relevance. How is their rise not only to be described but also explained? What does their existence and success mean for sector-specific and general industrial relations?

Keywords

Trade unions rise of professional unions characteristic features industrial relations sector-specific and general consequences public policy

Introduction

From their reconstruction after the Second World War the structures of German trade unions followed the norm of industrial unionism (‘one company, one union’). Based on this dominant organisational principle, the German Trade Union Federation (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund – DGB) had no more than 16 affiliates. Furthermore, it established a monopoly of representation, resulting in the predominance of sectoral collective bargaining. These structures were never seriously called into question, and remained unusually stable for several decades. In the mid-/late 1990s a wave of ‘mergers and acquisitions’ took place and the number of DGB affiliates was reduced from 16 to eight. In international comparative perspective this trend of concentration towards multi-industry (or general) unions occurred rather late and its scale constituted an exception (Waddington, 2005).

In the early/mid-2000s some unexpected developments took place in the opposite direction, namely towards more differentiation. They turned out to be important not only for the labour movement but also for the existing industrial relations system. By means of a number of strikes some comparatively small professional associations managed to upgrade their inferior status to that of professional union. Finally, their employers had officially to accept them as autonomous organisations and independent corporate actors in collective bargaining (Schroeder et al., 2011).

Our analysis focuses on common trends rather than specific characteristics of individual unions, still less on their historical development (Greef, 2012; Kalass, 2012 as case studies). Furthermore, we do not intend to add to the comprehensive literature on the various legal aspects (Schwarzwälder, 2013; Däubler and Bepler, 2015 as summaries). Instead we argue from the widely neglected industrial relations perspective. Within this multidisciplinary approach strikes certainly have to be mentioned, but they do not constitute our main object because they have been dealt with elsewhere (Lesch, 2016, 2017).

After introductory remarks on professional unions the article deals with two interrelated questions concerning them. The first is of so far widely neglected theoretical interest (Section 2): how can their unexpected rise not only be empirically described but be explained in theoretical terms? We make use of selected organisation theories and introduce in some detail recent theories on trade union power. The second is of more practical relevance (Section 3): what does their irrevocable existence and unanticipated success mean for the future? Do their lasting activities as autonomous parties of collective bargaining challenge or even threaten existing unitary unions and/or the established system of industrial relations in general or exclusively within their organisational domains? A short outlook concludes the article (Section 4). An additional purpose of the article is to inform the broader non-German community about current changes in trade union structures and their consequences for industrial relations. The article does not elaborate on other facets such as the different strategies of professional unions, and most recent political developments and legal decisions, as well as their foreseeable consequences with regard to procedures (see Keller, 2018, for details).

As far as methods are concerned the article is grounded on a number of different pillars. First, it is based on an encompassing evaluation of existing multidisciplinary contributions, especially of legal and economic origin. Second, we employ a long-term qualitative analysis of various other sources. We incorporate extensive reports in widely read national newspapers (especially Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Handelsblatt, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Tageszeitung). Third, we integrate various internet resources (such as Spiegel-online and LabourNet Germany) that provide thorough background information that in many instances is not provided elsewhere. Their assessments differ and are used to come to a balanced overall judgement. Fourth, we also assimilate sources of information that are usually not used (internal documents of individual professional unions, multiple press releases, written reports on specific issues, such as ongoing bargaining rounds or threatened strikes and detailed internet presentations of these unions or groups by their – sometimes dissenting – members). Fifth, some interviews with academic experts are adduced to provide a more profound and thorough understanding of recent developments.

Preconditions of analysis

The professional unions at present engaged in collective bargaining are:

Association Cockpit (Vereinigung Cockpit – VC);

Engine Drivers Union (Gewerkschaft Deutscher Lokomotivführer – GDL);

Union of Hospital Doctors (Verband der angestellten und beamteten Ärztinnen und Ärzte Deutschlands or Marburger Bund – MB);

Union of Air Traffic Controllers (Gewerkschaft der Fluglotsen – GdF);

Independent Organization of Flight Attendants (Unabhängige Flugbegleiter Organisation – UFO).¹

All institutional arrangements have specific consequences:

The boundaries of union inclusion are also frontiers of exclusion. The perceived common interests of the members of a particular union…are defined in part in contradistinction to those of workers outside. In compartmentalising workers, unions traditionally have compartmentalized solidarity. (Hyman, 2001: 170)

Industrial and professional unions are characterised by different organisational principles and therefore necessarily have to follow contradictory patterns of solidarity. They differ in recruitment strategies, procedures of interest aggregation and standardisation, as well as forms and strategies of interest representation. Industrial and, even more so, multi-industry unions face an enormous heterogeneity of diverging group interests that have to be accommodated and balanced by complicated processes of intraorganisational bargaining (Walton and McKersie, 1991) before coherent associational policies can be formulated. By definition, they have to take various, possibly even contradictory group interests into account and therefore adhere to the principle of inclusive solidarity. By contrast, professional unions represent comparatively homogeneous and specific group interests and therefore face fewer internal difficulties of interest aggregation and can follow the principle of exclusive solidarity without considering possible external effects of their action for other groups.

Some common characteristics are of relevance for our further analysis (see Table 1):

Table 1.

Professional unions: foundation and first collective agreement.

Union	Foundation	First agreement
VC	1969	2001
GDL	1867	2007
GdF	1952/2004	2004
MB	1947	2006
UFO	1992	2002

Sources: Greef and Speth (2013: 13); Bispinck (2015).

Their overall number has remained small and, in contrast to frequently expressed fears, has not increased in the recent past.

Their activities are restricted to a few private service sectors (transport and health), and none of them organises in major industrial sectors (such as metalworking or chemicals) or in the public sector.

None of them constitutes a new union or, as in other countries, a sectional breakaway from existing ones.

They have managed to transform their inferior-subordinate status from lobbying organisations and former junior partners of industrial unions to that of autonomous unions engaged in ‘their’ collective bargaining arenas.

They are independent organisations, not employer-sponsored (‘yellow unions’). With the sole exception of GDL – a member of the German Civil Service Federation (Deutscher Beamtenbund – DBB) – they are not affiliates of federations.

Their density ratios (but not the absolute number of their members) are far above the national average (at present less than 20 per cent) (Ebbinghaus and Göbel, 2014). These extraordinary ratios – a precondition for internal resources and external legitimacy – have remained stable and have, in contrast to those of industrial unions, not declined in the more recent past. These unusually high ratios are remarkable because private service sectors are usually considered to be rather difficult to organise (Visser, 2012), sometimes even ‘union-free’ (see Table 2).

Table 2.

Membership figures and density ratios of professional unions.

Union	Membership	Density ratios
GdF	3800	Very high (80 per cent) for air traffic controllers, unknown for ground control
GDL	34,000	High (80 per cent) for engine drivers, about 60 per cent of other personnel
MB	114,200	70 per cent of doctors
UFO	10,000	About 25 per cent for all airlines
VC	9300	More than 80 per cent for most airlines

Sources: GdF: www.gdf.de; GDL: www.gdl.de; MB: www.marburger-bund.de; UFO: Hensche (2007: 1032); VC: www.vcockpit.de; Schroeder and Greef (2014: 137).

Towards theoretical explanations

Explanations are frequently offered for the rise of professional unions, but they tend to be incomplete for a number of reasons.

Privatisation and deregulation were pushed in the early/mid-1990s (affecting, among others, railways, airlines and hospitals). This changed the opportunity structures for some professional associations. After their separation from the public sector the status and significance of collective bargaining increased. A growing number of employees were allowed to go on strike and this strengthened their unions’ power base. In contrast to changes in other sectors, processes of Europeanisation and globalisation were only of minor importance. However, this argument argues exclusively at the macro level and presents no micro–macro link (Coleman, 1990).

The emergence of multi-industry unions, whose most important outcome was the establishment of ver.di – which involved the merger of five formerly independent unions in 2001 (Keller, 2005) – is suggested as another explanation for the rise of professional unions. The growing ‘anonymity’ because of increasing size is supposed to inhibit or even prevent adequate representation of group-specific interests and thus workers’ willingness to join. This argument does not explain, however, the important case of GDL whose organisational domain was not touched by mergers. Furthermore, it does not illuminate why other mergers of this period, such as the industrial union Mining, Chemicals, Energy (IG Bergbau, Chemie, Energie – IG BCE) did not experience comparable consequences in its organisational domains. Last but not least, it puts the blame on external developments instead of concentrating on focal actors.

New Political Economy offers another explanation. Olson (1965, 1982) explores whether group size constitutes the decisive determinant of the organising capabilities of different associations. In contrast to the conventional thinking of pluralist group theory Olson argues that small groups (with homogeneous or ‘special’ interests) are easier to organise than large groups (with heterogeneous or ‘encompassing’ interests); the decisive reason is their members’ close interdependencies. To solve their organisational problem large associations must offer not only public goods (such as collective bargaining or lobbying activities) but also private ones. They constitute ‘selective incentives’ for potential members and manage to avoid the focal organisational problem of ‘free-riding’ instead of paying individual contributions. They constitute an essential prerequisite in cases of voluntary membership and when compulsory mechanisms such as closed shops or union shops are absent.

In comparison with their large industrial counterparts professional unions constitute comparatively small groups and therefore profit from the organisational advantage of limited group size. Furthermore, they are even able to provide not only public goods but also relevant private services for their members (among others, insurance, job-related information, legal advice and protection if necessary). All in all, they face comparatively favourable conditions of organisation.

This kind of reasoning could be valid for our cases and help to explain the above-mentioned high density ratios. However, it is general and broad but not very sector-specific. First of all, it does not explain the fact that the number of successful professional unions is still fairly small in comparison with the significantly larger overall number of professional associations (for an official list, see Deutscher Bundestag, 2014: 7). Furthermore its focus is on the recruitment of members and neglects the maintenance of membership. In that regard Hirschman (1972) argues that, in cases of individual discontent with performance, members have the option not only of ‘voice’ but also of ‘exit’ – in other words, leaving the organisation. Since the early/mid-1990s industrial unions have lost a significant number of members (Ebbinghaus and Göbel, 2014), whereas professional unions have managed to at least stabilise or even slightly increase their membership and thus their organisational resources.

Our alternative explanation benefits from two interrelated sources: one is organisation theory, or, to be more precise, resource dependence theory (Pfeffer and Salancik, 2003), an important paradigm that has been used frequently in social science, but so far has been widely neglected in industrial relations. The basic argument that organisations depend on resources that originate from their environments and constitute the basis of their power is of major importance for our problem. The other source is the more recent literature on trade union power. These concepts of a general nature are frequently used in international comparative research (among others, Gumbrell-McCormick and Hyman, 2013; Lehndorff et al., 2017). However, they are focused on already established unions. Therefore they need to be adapted to the specific circumstances of ‘new’ collective bargaining actors and the legal-institutional framework of individual countries and sectors. All in all, one could even argue that the structural imbalance of power in labour markets seems not to exist for these professional unions, which are able to control scarce resources that are of critical importance to their opponents.

The original conception of labour market power consists of two components, market and organisational power:

Certain groups of employees (such as doctors, pilots, air traffic controllers or engine drivers) are in key strategic positions in their group-specific labour markets and/or production chains. These specialists with scarce qualifications are indispensable for the provision of essential goods and services and cannot be substituted, or at least not in the short and medium term, and not completely. In other words, they are able not only to trigger internal effects for their employers but also to produce negative external consequences for other producers, as well as large groups of consumers, or even the general public, if they temporarily refuse to cooperate and go on strike. Therefore, these functional elites have massive market power at their disposal that can be used to achieve not only individual but also group-specific goals. They even increase their specific power in highly segmented labour markets if they join professional unions and thus are able to coordinate their individual activities. If such employees were members of a large industrial union they would boost the lower bargaining power of other, less focal member groups, but would not be able fully to realise their own interests.

As already mentioned all professional unions are characterised by unusually high density ratios, far above the present national average. These group-specific ratios constitute the necessary prerequisite of organisational power that can be utilised, among other things, in the form of strikes. In a more detailed analysis this broad category can be differentiated into two sub-forms: ‘ability to pay’ and ‘ability to act’. Both exist in all our cases: individual members are able and willing to pay (in comparison with industrial unions rather low) dues and thus provide their organisations with necessary financial resources. These unions manage to achieve and maintain high density ratios, as well as to mobilise a significant number of their members if they consider industrial action to be necessary. Since the early 2000s this has happened several times and resulted in their formal recognition as bargaining partners.

These two forms of individual (sometimes called primary) and collective (sometimes called secondary) power resources are of a supplementary nature. If both exist at the same time they constitute both necessary and sufficient preconditions for successful interest representation. They are generated internally. A more elaborate version of trade union power distinguishes additional sources that, in terms of organisation theory, originate from their environments. In our cases the relevant form of externally generated power is institutional power, which is related, first, to the struggle for official recognition and later, its conservation. For quite some time employers and management flatly refused to recognise them as autonomous partners for collective bargaining. Therefore, all professional unions needed at least one, in some cases even more, walkouts during several bargaining rounds before they had to be accepted.

The principle of free collective bargaining (Tarifautonomie) is protected as a fundamental right by the Basic Law (Grundgesetz, Article 9(3)). In 2010 the Federal Labour Court (Bundesarbeitsgericht – BAG) finally abandoned the position of bargaining unity (‘one company, one union’) it had developed since the mid-1950s and maintained for decades, and officially recognised bargaining plurality. This considerably widened legal interpretation, thus accepting and legitimising the modified constellation of unions. Thus professional unions managed to achieve not only factual recognition by the employers but also legal recognition by the BAG and thus institutional power.

As an immediate reaction the federations of ‘sides of industry’ engaged in rigorous joint lobbying – a rare constellation of interests in more recent German industrial relations – and insisted on the restoration of the status quo ante (BDA and DGB, 2010). In 2015 the German parliament finally passed the Act on Collective Bargaining Unity (Tarifeinheitsgesetz) that re-established the previous principle of bargaining unity. After this decision was made some professional, as well as other unions immediately filed constitutional complaints and applied for interim injunctions. In 2017 the judgment by the Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht, 2017) did not re-establish the former status and thus stabilised the status professional unions had already achieved.

Interestingly enough, these sources of institutional power of professional unions were provided by the federal courts and not, as might have been expected, by parliament or the government. The last mentioned judgment is truly Solomonic because, on the one hand, it declares the Act constitutional and, on the other, it recognises the existence of professional unions and stabilises their status as autonomous collective bargaining partners.²

Discursive (or communicative) power, by contrast, is the result of efforts to influence public opinion or, to be more precise, published opinion, as another critical and fragile resource. By means of extensive public relations both sides try to cope with environmental uncertainties and struggle for necessary external support in order to strengthen their own and weaken the opponent’s bargaining position. From the union point of view these extensive activities are of particular importance before and during strikes when not only management and employers but also third, non-involved parties are affected by the temporary unavailability of essential and sensitive services (such as public transport). Therefore unions risk the loss of necessary backing from the public. Surprisingly, and in contrast to frequent assumptions, two recent empirical studies find that public support for professional unions is high and even remains so during strikes (Ecke, 2015; Köhler and Jost, 2017).³

Consequences

When some professional unions succeeded in upgrading their former status it was frequently argued that this development would spread to (all) other sectors and thus threaten the existence of the established industrial relations system. The resurgence of the notorious ‘British disease’ of the 1960s and 1970s and the ‘fragmentation’ and ‘balkanisation’ or even ‘erosion’ of bargaining structures were often repeated worries. These fears were expressed not only in the media but, among others, by (quite a few) lawyers and (some) economists. They were in line with the above-mentioned, fairly unusual lobbying initiative by federations of ‘both sides of industry’ to re-establish the former legal status of bargaining unity by legislative action. Some years later the decisive question is whether these fears about the presumed consequences of bargaining plurality versus bargaining unity were realistic in empirical perspective or obviously exaggerated for reasons of organisational self-interest. In what follows we distinguish between sector-specific and general consequences because they differ to a significant degree.

Consequences at meso level

Professional unions have definitely transformed former bargaining structures and power balance within their organisational domains (transport and health care). From our power theory standpoint one fact is particularly noteworthy. In contrast to other sectors, it was not management and/or employers and their associations who initiated these transformation processes but a number of small professional unions. This lasting success has to be explained by labour market and trade union power theories, the simultaneous availability of internally generated market and organisational power, as well as the existence of externally established institutional and discursive power. It is remarkable that these sectoral changes happened in a time of general decline of (industrial) union impact (especially decreasing density ratios and less impact on bargaining outcomes). Other organisations lack these necessary resources and thus are unable to emulate the professional unions’ success.

These modifications cannot be described adequately in our present industrial relations terminology. They do not simply prolong well-known processes of ‘decentralisation’ of collective bargaining from the sectoral (or multi-employer) to the enterprise (or single-employer) level of the kind that have taken place in other sectors since the mid-/late 1980s (for a summary see Kädtler, 2014). Therefore, in these cases the frequently used typology of ‘coordinated’ (by the sectoral social partners) versus ‘uncontrolled’ (or wild) decentralisation (Traxler, 1995, 1998) cannot be applied in its original version.

This new institutional design leads to higher ‘costs of running the system’ (Williamson, 1985, 1996). It is more heterogeneous than the old one and contributes to a ‘new intransparency’ in industrial relations. It is the outcome of an idiosyncratic and purely sector-specific transformation that can adequately be labelled (a mild form of) ‘horizontal pluralisation’ or ‘horizontal differentiation’. Interestingly enough, recent international-comparative research discovers increasing within-country diversity in major OECD countries (Bamber et al., 2016; Bechter et al., 2012). The cases analysed are in line with these more recent trends.

In contrast to general trends in other major sectors (Ellguth and Kohaut, 2017) formerly high sectoral coverage rates (of employees) do not change their overall level; only their composition is now different because of the rise of professional unions and their shares in these rates. Therefore, the inclusive character of collective bargaining is not declining or deteriorating. Furthermore, the density ratios of both sides remain high. Extension mechanisms – so-called erga omnes clauses that extend the results of collective bargaining to non-organised enterprises – are, in contrast to other sectors, of no major importance.

The problem for sustainable industrial relations is not, as has frequently been argued, the mere increase in the overall number of unions. The fundamental issue is rather the development of their inter-organisational relations, especially their arrangements for collective bargaining. Within the changed structures two patterns have to be carefully distinguished because their consequences differ to a considerable degree:

If there are, as in the majority of cases (as in hospitals between MB and ver.di or in airlines between VC and ver.di), no overlaps of their organisational domains or if unions agree on existing demarcation rules and respect them, problems of representation are comparatively easy to solve or at least to handle; only the number of bargaining partners, and probably of bargaining rounds, increases.

In the comparatively rare opposite case of either overlapping organisational domains (as for flight attendants between ver.di and UFO) or attempts to expand them in order to extend their own power base (as in the railway sector, in which GDL has tried to expand from engine drivers to other train personnel) additional inter-organisational conflicts are triggered and more difficult to solve.

Industrial conflict has been a prominent issue since professional unions emerged. There are two reasons for this. One is the fear of a general increase in strike activities, the other the assumption that strikes have not only internal effects for both sides (strike subsidies for unions, less revenues for employers) but also external negative effects for uninvolved third parties (consumers as well as other producers).

However, two strike patterns should be explicitly distinguished within this highly ‘contested terrain’. The first strikes, about issues of principal importance, such as official recognition as autonomous collective bargaining partners, were more conflictual and lasted longer than the later ones, about ‘bread and butter’ issues (such as wages and working time) (for a summary see Lesch, 2016); they modified the formerly established balance of power in sectoral industrial relations. Reasons of organisational self-interest for status upgrades and complete independence from others dominated on the union side. On the opposite side, the employers were unable to cope with the new environmental uncertainties: they flatly refused to accept additional partners in collective bargaining and thus risked or prolonged conflicts.

All in all, a significant increase in overall strike activity, as measured by the typical indicators (such as number of participants, duration and working days lost) has not been registered because of strikes by professional unions (see Table 3). Furthermore, the consequences for non-involved third parties are frequently exaggerated in public discourse (Schnabel, 2015). Interestingly, these activities fit the more recent overall pattern of ‘tertiarisation’ of strikes; in other words, their shift from the production to the service sector (for an international comparison see Vandaele, 2011). In a comparative EU or OECD perspective, the level of industrial conflict remains low in Germany (for other countries see European Commission, 2015) and there are no signs of a ‘resurgence of class conflict’.

Table 3.

Strikes by professional unions since 2006.

Year	Sector	Union
2006	University hospitals, local hospitals	MB
2007	Railways	GDL
2009	Air traffic control	GdF
2010	Local hospitals	MB
2010	Aviation	VC
2011	Railways	GDL
2012	Aviation	UFO
2012	Air traffic control	GdF
2014	Railways	GDL
2014	Aviation	VC
2015	Railways	GDL
	Aviation	VC
	Aviation	UFO
2016	Aviation	VC

Sources: Lesch (2016: 167); author’s translation and additions.

Consequences at macro level

Professional unions have transformed industrial relations in their organisational domains but have not initiated more general trends of change. More recently the number of professional unions has not increased and the frequently feared uncontrolled ‘spillover’ effects to other sectors have not happened. This is the case despite the above-mentioned legal modifications towards the acceptance of bargaining plurality, as well as the existence of a number of other professional associations (see Deutscher Bundestag, 2014 for a detailed list). Their members, or at least some of them, have market power but not the other necessary preconditions, especially organisational and institutional power. In contrast to their successful counterparts their density ratios remain low and there would be no public support for potential action.

In empirical perspective necessary institutional prerequisites and power resources are lacking. Furthermore, barriers to market entry – first of all the recruitment of experienced personnel and the availability of sufficient financial resources, among other things, for necessary strike funds – are too high to surmount. It is unlikely that this constellation will drastically change in the future. The presence of professional unions will remain restricted to a small number of private service sectors. Therefore, recurrently articulated fears about major consequences are not justified. The frequently feared ‘balkanisation’ or ‘fragmentation’ of the bargaining landscape (BDA and DGB, 2010) lacks a solid empirical foundation. Both federations argued and lobbied for reasons of organisational self-interest because they wanted, first, to preserve and, later on, to re-establish their monopoly of representation in collective bargaining instead of sharing it with newcomers.

Other urgent problems are to be observed in major sectors (such as decreasing coverage rates, tacit escape from bargaining despite continued membership of employers’ associations, existence of so-called white spots on the bargaining landscape, increase of non-union sectors, spread of low-wage areas; see Keller and Kirsch, 2016 for a summary). These accumulating problems for stable industrial relations are absent from those sectors in which professional unions are active.

Last but not least, the general problem of majority (usually industrial) versus minority (usually professional) unions is not necessarily confined to these two types. One could argue that inter-union conflicts about organising and representing specific groups could also emerge between industrial unions (among others, IG Metall and ver.di in energy, IT or logistics) and thus, between DGB affiliates. The reason is that formerly clear-cut lines of demarcation have been blurred in a period of continued outsourcing and plural forms of network organisations. Unions face difficulties of mutual adaptation because they are, first of all, interested in expanding or at least maintaining their own membership.

Outlook

Our general conclusion is unambiguous. Professional unions have transformed the structure of sectoral industrial relations – especially collective bargaining – exclusively within their organisational domains. However, they do not constitute – despite frequent assumptions and former predictions – a general challenge or even threat to the existing system. Furthermore they have established themselves not only as new but as permanent corporate actors of collective bargaining and it is not to be expected that they will disappear.

International comparisons of individual parts of industrial relations systems are complicated mainly because of the close empirical interdependence of country-specific forms of legal-institutional regulation and their customs and practice (Bamber et al., 2016; Frege and Kelly, 2013). In a comparative EU perspective the new constellation of unions in Germany is not surprising because the still dominant principle of industrial unionism is exceptional, even in national historical perspective; it has existed only since reconstruction after the Second World War (Schroeder and Greef, 2014; Streeck, 2005).

Among others, neighbouring Belgium and France do not have industrial unions. Research on the issue concludes that, due to the complexity of industrial relations the assumption of a general superiority of unitary forms of organisation and representation is not empirically justified (Prigge, 1991, 2000).⁴ Furthermore, the extent of organisational heterogeneity in Germany is still rather limited, not only compared with the multi-union system in the United Kingdom (among others see Waddington, 2016).⁵ An empirical study on the United Kingdom concluded: ‘Perhaps the most surprising result…is how few establishments experienced problems with multi-unionism. Where problems did exist, they were marginal’ (Dobson, 1997: 562).

In a long-term perspective the sectoral social partners have two ‘strategic choices’ for self-regulation of their inter-union relationships:

The conclusion and routine use of mediation agreements constitutes the most important procedure for solving collective disputes of interest on a voluntary basis instead of by legal prescription. They do not prevent all potential strikes but strictly limit their number and consequences. In the meantime such agreements have been concluded in all our sectors.

The formation and maintenance of joint or coalition bargaining (as new forms of ‘cooperative pluralism’) is unrealistic for the time being but, as outcomes of collective efforts of attitudinal structuring (Walton and McKersie, 1991), not necessarily for the future. Such formalised arrangements would by no means be new. In the past they occurred between industrial unions and their junior partners, professional associations. Such procedural rules already exist in other sectors, such as journalism; the public sector constitutes the most prominent example (Keller, 2016). Among other things, they are flexible forms of cooperation and procedures for reducing ex ante as well as ex post transaction costs (Williamson, 1985, 1996).

Last but not least, one topic for future research needs to be mentioned. The German system of industrial relations is a so-called ‘dual’ regime that, in contrast to its ‘monistic’ counterpart, is characterised by a legal distinction but factual interplay between actors at the enterprise and the sectoral level (Keller and Kirsch, 2016). Research about the potential consequences of professional unions at the lower level is completely missing. What specific role, if any, do their representatives play as elected members of works councils, the dominant institutions of ‘collective voice’ at the shop-floor level? Do they constitute a countervailing power within these councils or do they engage in some form of internal cooperative pluralism with other representatives? In other words, will patterns of conflict or cooperation emerge and dominate?

Footnotes

Notes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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