European Works Councils during the financial and economic crisis: Activation, stagnation or disintegration?

The article compares changes in the European Works Councils (EWCs) at Ford and General Motors Europe during the financial and economic crisis. Previously, both were highly active and effective. Although both otherwise displayed quite different characteristics before the crisis, their reactions were quite similar. At both companies, competition and mistrust among representatives increased, resulting in a decline of integration and effectiveness. We explore the importance of personal relations as preconditions for stability and effectiveness in EWCs

Owners, external managers and industrial relations in German establishments

Abstract Using data from the representative IAB Establishment Panel in Germany and estimating a heteroskedastic probit model with fixed effects, this paper finds a negative relationship between the existence of owner‐management in an establishment and the probabilities of having a works council or a collective bargaining agreement. We show that family firms which are solely managed by the owners or by external executives significantly differ in the presence of these kinds of worker representation. The probabilities of having works councils and (company‐level) collective agreements increase substantially if just some of the managers do not belong to the owner family. We argue that these differences cannot simply be attributed to an aversion of the owners against co‐determination and unions but suggest taking account of the notion of socio‐emotional wealth prevalent in family firms. In addition, our results support the idea that external managers mainly act as agents rather than stewards in family firms