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This chapter analyzes the economic ‘push’ factors that lead to early exit from work. Some firms co-sponsor early retirement via occupational pensions in order to facilitate restructuring. Deindustrialization, mass unemployment, and privatization have increased structural push, with early exit spreading widely across sectors. Two varieties of capitalism can be observed: early exit is used by firms to adapt to regulated labor markets in Continental coordinated market economies, it is more cyclical and infrequent in Anglophone flexible labor markets, while Japan and Sweden are exceptional cases that integrate older workers.

If the MNC is to become a genuine vehicle for mutually beneficial collaboration and learning by monitoring among its constituent units, as argued in the previous chapter, organizational channels must be constructed to involve employees and their representatives in ongoing practical deliberation about the strategic objectives of the global firm and the performance measures used to assess progress towards them. Accomplishing such a transformation would entail the creation of a new multinational ‘public’ for the corporation, understood pragmatically as ‘an open group of actors which constitutes itself as such in coming together to address a common problem, and reconstitutes itself as its efforts at problem solving redefine the task at hand’. This chapter examines a series of experimental projects and institutions which could give rise to the development of such a multinational public, beginning with European Works Councils (EWCs). It is shown that the ambiguous experience of participation in these Councils, coupled with the contradictory effects of recent trends towards the coordination and decentralization of collective bargaining, have stimulated the appearance in Denmark and other European countries of efforts to create interregional networks of local actors operating at the interface between MNC subsidiaries and their host communities.

This chapter evaluates the status and prospects of trade unions and works councils in Nazi Germany. The report details that the German trade-union movement has developed in a different direction from American unionism. The German unions were affiliated with political parties: the Free Trade-Unions with the Social Democratic Party; the Christian-National Trade-Unions with the Center Party and the German National People's Party; and the German Trade Associations (Hirsch-Duncker) with the Democratic Party. The chapter first provides an overview of trade unionism in Germany prior to Adolf Hitler's ascension to power before discussing the spontaneous revival of trade unionism after the collapse of the Nazi regime. It then considers trade-union development in the Allied zones of occupation and in the Soviet zone of occupation, along with the revival of the works councils or shop stewards movement. It also addresses the question of the “political neutrality” of the trade-union movement.

Chapter 11 explores enduring ambiguities of representation within an emergent European Executive Order. Attention is directed towards how differences in domestic institutional constellations shape the representational roles of member‐state officials attending the Council Working Parties (CWPs). The primary argument is that role perceptions employed by national civil servants within the CWPs are considerably conditioned by actors' domestic institutional embedment. Comparing Belgian and Swedish officials attending working groups within the Council of Ministers substantiates this argument. This chapter shows that Belgian officials are more supranationally oriented than their Swedish counterparts and that this difference is related to varying levels of vertical and horizontal specialization, federalism, competition among veto‐players, the role of the Foreign Ministry, and the level of trust in domestic government compared to the level of trust in the European Union. Hence, supranational dynamics within the emergent European Executive Order is profoundly conditioned by the formal organization of domestic government systems.

Chapter 9 explores the role of EU committees in the emergent European Executive Order. EU committees are important laboratories for studying transformational change that transcends the territorial dynamics of Westphalia because they have institutionalized the bringing together of domestic and Community officials. This chapter explores the following EU committees: The Commission Expert Committees (ECs) that prepare decisions for the Commission, the Council Working Parties (CWPs) that prepare decisions for the Council of Ministers, and the so‐called Comitology Committees (CCs) that assist the Council in controlling delegated powers to the Commission. Comparative survey data reveals that the intergovernmental dynamic is weaker within the ECs than within the CWPs and CCs. Hence, the picture of one unified EU committee system has to be sacrificed for the model of a compound committee system balancing multiple behavioural dynamics. The data seriously challenges sweeping generalizations of administrative fusion and bureaucratic engrenage. This chapter also demonstrates that deliberative dynamics are not omnipotent within the CCs as asserted by Joerges and Neyer (1997).

Chapter 10 studies mechanisms of socialization and re‐socialization among domestic government officials attending EU committees. It is argued that domestic government officials participating in EU committees supplement pre‐existing role perceptions with supranational roles under certain conditions. EU committees are seen as transformative institutions that accompany a partial re‐socialization of the committee participants. The data demonstrates that domestic civil servants become re‐socialized due to their intensity of participation on EU committees. Contrary to neo‐functionalist assumptions, however, the length of participation on EU committees does not significantly impact on the re‐socialization of committee participants. The data also demonstrates that supranational roles are indeed secondary to pre‐existing intergovernmental and departmental roles. Consistent with the idea of compound executive orders, the emergence of supranational roles among EU committee participants does not replace pre‐established roles within intergovernmental institutions such as the Council of Ministers.

This chapter examines Germany's distinctive system of codetermination (Mitbestimmung), which gives employees some say in management decision making, and the role it played in preserving the solidity and stability of the German industrial relations system throughout the postwar years. It begins with an overview of codetermination and its two components: works councils and employee representation on supervisory boards of large enterprises. It then explains how codetermination has made trade unions especially resilient and goes on to assess employers' attitudes toward codetermination, particularly with regards to various forms of parity representation on supervisory boards. It also considers the efforts of employers associations and trade unions to amend codetermination legislation over the years. The chapter concludes by discussing the larger significance of codetermination to German industrial relations and the German economy.

This chapter examines EU law and policy in the field of employment and considers the extent to which they reflect the objectives of combating racism and promoting ethnic equality. It examines EU employment legislation, such as that on worker participation. In the policy sphere, it looks at the European Employment Strategy and the European Social Fund. It concludes that issues of racism find their way onto the agenda with more ease in new governance processes; however, their fluidity means that the issue can subsequently fall off the agenda at a later stage.

This chapter examines organizational restructuring in major telecommunications firms or corporate groups, along with their implications for employees working across networked call centers. Telecommunications employers have used restructuring measures such as outsourcing, subsidiary creation, and consolidation of jobs in both the United States and Germany to reduce costs, often with the effect of weakening or avoiding collective agreements. Managers either moved work or sold locations to call center subcontractors with substantially lower union density, few collective agreements, and in Germany, weaker works councils. Using a number of case studies, this chapter compares the strategies adopted by labor unions and works councils at major telecommunications firms toward organizational restructuring, and their effects on management strategy and worker outcomes. It shows that organizational restructuring not only had a disorganizing effect on industrial relations institutions in the telecommunications sector, but also has made it more difficult for unions to establish new institutions across the more decentralized “production networks” used by companies to organize their call center work.

This chapter examines the strategies employed by U.S. and German telecommunications firms and their subcontractors to reorganize call center jobs in hope of improving the productivity and quality of customer service and sales. Matched case studies in these two industries show that despite similar strategies and objectives, managers in each country established very different employment systems. Labor unions in the United States were unable to prevent managers from intensifying monitoring and discipline to increase productivity. In contrast, unions and works councils in Germany used their strong codetermination rights to promote a more professional, or high-involvement, model of work design that safeguarded employee autonomy and discretion. This chapter highlights the importance of strong institutional supports for workplace democracy in encouraging management to adopt high-road approaches to reorganizing jobs and motivating workers.

This chapter examines changes in markets and industrial relations in the U.S. and German telecommunications industries. Government-led market liberalization (and, in Germany, privatization) has meant that market conditions and ownership structures are increasingly similar between Germany and the United States. The former monopolists face growing price competition from new firms with lower fixed costs and weaker or no labor unions. As a result, bargaining coverage has declined and bargaining has become increasingly decentralized in unions' traditional strongholds. At the same time, German unions have held on to past sources of power at the workplace level in core firms, primarily through their relationships with strong and independent works councils. This chapter shows that both Germany and the United States had moved toward less coordinated collective bargaining and weaker unions by the late 2000s.

National trade unions have long recognised the need to act beyond national boundaries, and most appreciate the growing urgency of effective international organization. This chapter presents an overview of the different levels of at which unions can engage internationally: global, European, sectoral, company, describing the institutional framework of trade union internationalism at all these levels. It also explores similarities and differences in the approaches to international work in our ten countries, and identifies a growing concentration on European-level and sectoral-based international work. The chapter argues that there is a fundamental tension in international trade union policy: is this a specialist issue which should be left to ‘international experts’, or a mainstream concern for all members and activists? This dilemma forms part of a broader tension between the needs for effective strategy and for vigorous internal democracy.

This chapter examines the extent to which the case studies discussed earlier are representative of broader trends in the U.S. and German call center industries, as well as of international developments. Survey data show that Germany's call centers were more likely to adopt high-involvement practices, but take-up of some of these practices was strongest where both labor unions and works councils were present. At the same time, patterns of inequality were similar. Average pay and working conditions differed between call centers, with subcontractors having low pay and low collective bargaining coverage in both countries. A comparison of survey results from other countries in North America and Europe also show within-country variation in wages and working conditions, but countries varied somewhat in the structure of union and works council representation as well as in patterns of outcomes.

The aim of this chapter is to address the question of the similarities and differences between the labour constitution as theorized by Sinzheimer, and the terms of the labour constitutions as enacted and practised in the Weimar Republic, and in the postwar Federal Republic. The intention, in other words, is to consider the broader question of the relationship between labour law scholarship and labour law as legal doctrine. The title of the chapter refers to ‘codetermination’, which is used here in its broadest sense to include collective bargaining and workplace works council relations as well as company board representation. A particular point of focus is the importance of the state to the German labour constitution. Discussion extends beyond collective labour law and industrial relations to include the participation of trade unions and employers’ associations in the administration of social welfare.

We encountered high levels of union organization in the automotive plants in the BRICs. Trade union strength in some cases had a direct impact on personnel systems, either because the union was able to act as a veto player, or alternatively, because it was actively involved in implementing decisions and resolving problems. The first issue dealt with in this chapter is how the historical background and current legal regulation has shaped the status of trade unions in the workplace. The second issue is the question of what approach the case-study companies have adopted towards trade union representation. The third question relates to the role of union and non-union forms of voice within companies. The chapter follows a country-based logic, beginning with Brazil, followed by Russia, India, and then China. Particular emphasis is placed on comparing the different employee development approaches of Volkswagen, Toyota, and the domestic manufacturers in the BRICs.

From the early 20^th century through World War II, labor activism and women’s subsistence activism around tenants’ rights, food prices and education was central to industrial feminism and working-class women’s activism. This chapter traces the career of Clara Lemlich Shavelson after the 1909 uprising as she became a Communist Party activist and a leader in decades of rent strikes, kosher meat boycotts and the creation of working-class women’s neighbourhood councils. By 1935 her work had helped to spark a nation-wide meat boycott to protest price gouging.

This chapter critically examines twenty years of research on European works councils (EWCs). These are statutory, company-level forums that bring together workers’ and employers’ representatives for purposes of information and consultation. It evaluates the extent to which EWCs have lived up to the promise of providing a ‘voice’ to employees in multinational corporations across Europe. Optimistic and pessimistic prognostications are weighed against each other in the context of the question of the extent to which EWCs have ‘added value’. The analysis we provide is framed through the lenses of varieties of capitalism. We conclude that, in spite of the challenges associated with cross-national information and consultation forums—and there are many—EWCs have made some limited progress in giving employees a greater ‘voice’ in the employment relationship