Labor Relations Commons^™

Up Against The Fallen Wall: The Crisis Of Social Partnership In Unified Germany, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] This book addresses two central and related sets of questions. First, what type of political economy is emerging in unified Germany? How "West German" is it? Is Germany permanently polarized into East and West or converging on a single, integrated political economy? To what extent is the "coordinated market economy" (Soskice 1991) becoming less, or differently, coordinated? The answers to these questions will affect the outcomes of issues ranging from policy and politics to production organization. Second, what has happened to the famous German "social partnership" since unification? Do the employer offensives of 1993-1996 in the pattern-setting metal and …

Unifying Germany: Crisis, Conflict, And Social Partnership In The East, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] I argue that social partnership is alive and well in eastern Germany. My evidence for this surprising outcome includes the IG Metall strike victory of 1993 and plant-level case studies of restructuring and industrial relations in the metal and electronics industries of eastern Germany. The success of social partnership in eastern Germany can be traced both to the flexible suitability of institutions transferred from the West and to the actor choices in the negotiations and conflicts that have made it possible to adapt these institutions to a new environment. Both the institutional and political aspects of the argument are …

The East In Open Conflict: The Great Strike Of 1993, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] Because it is impossible in one book to examine all German institutions of negotiation, this book focuses on one important set of relations at the heart of social market regulation: the "social partnership" between labor and management. "Social partnership," a term widely used throughout the European Union but little known in the United States, refers to the nexus—and central political and economic importance—of bargaining relationships between strongly organized employers (in employer associations) and employees (in unions and works councils) that range from comprehensive collective bargaining and plant-level codetermination to vocational training and federal, state, and local economic policy discussions. …

Social Partnership In Germany: Lessons For U.S. Labor And Management, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

German industrial relations in the postwar period have made a major contribution to German industrial success. The German system is rooted in the explicit recognition of well organized interests: strong, assertive employers and employers' associations not afraid to demand what they think is right, including wage restraint as well as reorganization of production toward "lean production"; and strong, assertive unions not afraid to demand what they think is right, including broad skills training, high wages, a shorter workweek, and a "human-centered" work organization. Amazingly, these strong forces end up with negotiated outcomes in a system that is accurately called "social …

Revitalizing Labor In Today's World Markets, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] Competitiveness for firms is possible via the high road or low road, or some combination of the two. For a nation, however, if competitiveness means the ability of a country's firms to sell on world markets while contributing to rising average incomes and living standards at home, then only the high road will do, especially for advanced industrial societies such as Germany and the United States. The tragedy of today's touted "American model" is that it is based too much on the low road, and as a result includes growing income polarization and a deep "representation gap." American workers, …

Rank-And-File Participation In Organizing At Home And Abroad, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] We know that we need labor law reform. But it is also clear that this is not all we need; nor can we expect to achieve legal reform simply by electing Democrats. That strategy did not work in 1978-79 or in 1993-94, and it will not work in the future. In the face of inevitably powerful and well-organized business opposition, even the most well-financed and articulate lobbying campaign for labor law reform can fail. What was missing in 1978-79 and in 1993-94 and is urgently needed now is the pressure of a massive social movement, mobilized to transform and …

Introduction: An Urban Resurgence Of Social Unionism, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] The essays presented here examine the emergence, successes, and failures of contemporary urban-based labor movements, especially in the United States, where such developments are most significant, but also in the United Kingdom and Germany in comparative perspective. Our central question is why such labor movements have emerged prominently and achieved significant successes in some cities but not in others. A comparative analysis points to the central role of two factors: agency, specifically the choices and strategies pursued by union leaders and their organizations; and opportunity structure, located in the presence or absence of particular barriers in the institutional, political, …

Institutions And Activism: Crisis And Opportunity For A German Labor Movement In Decline, Lowell Turner

Lowell Turner

In recent decades, German unions have rested on their institutional laurels even as the ground has slipped away. This article analyzes two recent innovative campaigns based on grassroots mobilization that, the author argues, offer possibilities for renewed union strength. A breakthrough campaign against a militantly anti-union firm in the retail industry demonstrates the potential for a German brand of social movement unionism. The story line and institution-building strategy of this campaign fall entirely outside the framework of traditional German industrial relations. A second, very different campaign, from deep inside that traditional framework, has mobilized union members in Nordrhein-Westfalen (IG Metall’s …

Perils Of The High And Low Roads: Employment Relations In The United States And Germany, Lowell Turner, Kirsten S. Wever, Michael Fichter

Lowell Turner

[Excerpt] The U.S. crisis is characterized by growing income inequality, a shrinking safety net, and the decline of worker representation. Like the German crisis, it is caused in part by intensified global competition. Unlike in Germany, problems in the United States have also been exacerbated by deregulation, short-term horizons (e.g., quarterly reports to shareholders), and the decline of the labor movement.

Both Germany and the United States, however, have substantial political, economic, and social resources to use in solving their problems. The contemporary crises do not appear for either of these countries to foreshadow a major collapse like that of …