Abstract
Our understanding of management labour-policy strategies in international corporations is rather patchy. The abundance of findings presented in this study by Rüb and Platzer, sponsored by the Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, goes a long way towards remedying this. The survey covers 12 large German companies from the metal, chemical, construction and insurance sectors, all of which have a European works council (EWC).
For managements, European works councils constitute the central transnational structure in matters of labour relations. European law provides the relevant compliance framework. Generally speaking, managers responsible for labour relations try to extend the German system for handling conflict in partnership with workforces, works councils and trade unions to the European works council. But this poses them something of a dilemma. On the one hand, they want to bring about cross-border standardisation within their group, while on the other hand national or local conditions cannot be altered simply by top management fiat. The upshot is that European works councils work well, but labour relations based on social partnership are not extended to production locations abroad. The German labour relations system is not really an ‘export success’.
That is particularly evident in relation to production locations outside the EU. The more global a corporation’s operations, the closer top management tends to lean towards the Anglo-Saxon approach to human relations, which is hostile to workers’ participation (co-determination). On top of that, at global level there are no workers’ rights comparable to those of the EU, merely non-binding recommendations to which management pays little heed.
According to the authors, the prospects of transnational labour relations remain fluid. It could be imagined, for example, that the partnership approach to conflict could be extended to EU production locations, which indeed is what the trade unions need to implement the Europe-wide strategy and activities that have so far eluded them. But it may also happen that the Anglo-Saxon approach begins to creep into labour relations in Germany.
In conclusion, readers who are interested in empirical findings, but have neither the time nor the inclination to read this somewhat daunting study would be well advised to confine themselves to the summary in the closing chapter.
This volume is recommended for trade unionists, works councillors and managers in large companies.
Translation from the German by James Patterson