50 Jahre Arbeitsbeziehungen in Deutschland: eine Erfolgsgeschichte?

"Zwischen den Verfassungsorganen Parlament und Exekutive auf der einen Seite und den autonomen Tarifvertragsparteien auf der anderen Seite besteht ein Spannungsverhältnis. Die letzteren haben aber ihre Regelungskompetenzen in den letzten 50 Jahren nicht mißbraucht. Dies gilt besonders für die Gewerkschaften, denn auf diese richtet sich vor allem die kritische Aufmerksamkeit. Von einer Gefährdung des Gemeinwohls durch einen Neo-Korporatismus kann keine Rede sein. Im Gegenteil: Durch ihre Gemeinwohlorientierung hat die deutsche Gewerkschaftsbewegung seit ihrer Wiederbegründung als Einheitsgewerkschaft wesentlich zum Wiederaufbau von Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft und zur politischen Stabilisierung der Bundesrepublik Deutschland beigetragen. Dies läßt sich durch ihr kooperatives Verhalten in der Tarifpolitik, in der Mitbestimmung, in ihrem Verhältnis zu den Parteien, zum Staat und zu den Kirchen, in der sozialen Selbstverwaltung, in der beruflichen Bildung belegen. Die großen Sozialverbände sind angesichts der Massenarbeitslosigkeit und der technikinduzierten Wandlungen in der Arbeitswelt, aber auch angesichts des Wandels der gesellschaftlichen Werte in die Krise geraten. Besonders die Gewerkschaften stehen vor der immensen Aufgabe, die Position der Arbeitnehmer in der post-industriellen Ära und ihre Schutz-, Ordnungs- und Gestaltungsstrategien neu zu definieren." (Autorenreferat)"There is a tension in the relationship between the constitutional bodies of parliament and executive on the one hand, and the autonomy of unions and employer organisations in collective bargaining on the other. However, the latter have never, over the last 50 years, misused their regulatory powers. This is especially true of the trade unions which have been under the critical spotlight. The public interest is not threatened by a form of neocorporatism. On the contrary, because of its concern for the public interest, the German labour movement, since its reconstitution as unified trade unions, has contributed significantly to the reconstruction of economy and society, and to stabilisation of the Federal Republic of Germany. This is demonstrated by cooperative behaviour in collective bargaining, codetermination, and in the relationships with political parties, the state and the churches, in the self-government of the social security system, and in vocational training. As a result of mass unemployment, technology induced changes in work organisation, and changes in social values, all large-scale traditional labour institutions face a crisis. The unions in particular have the immense task of redefining the position of employees in the post-industrial era, and the strategies for protecting employee interests." (author's abstract

The behaviour of political parties and MPs in the parliaments of the Weimar Republic

Copyright @ 2012 The Authors. This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below.Analysing the roll-call votes of the MPs of the Weimar Republic we find: (1) that party competition in the Weimar parliaments can be structured along two dimensions: an economic left–right and a pro-/anti-democratic. Remarkably, this is stable throughout the entire lifespan of the Republic and not just in the later years and despite the varying content of votes across the lifespan of the Republic, and (2) that nearly all parties were troubled by intra-party divisions, though, in particular, the national socialists and communists became homogeneous in the final years of the Republic.Zukunftskolleg, University of Konstan

SBP-domain transcription factors as possible effectors of cryptochrome-mediated blue light signalling in the moss Physcomitrella patens

Cryptochromes are blue light absorbing photoreceptors found in many organisms and involved in numerous developmental processes. At least two highly similar cryptochromes are known to affect branching during gametophytic development in the moss Physcomitrella patens. We uncovered a relationship between these cryptochromes and the expression of particular members of the SBP-box genes, a plant specific transcription factor family. Transcript levels of the respective moss SBP-box genes, all belonging to the LG1-subfamily, were found to be dependent, albeit not exclusively, on blue light. Moreover, disruptant lines generated for two moss representatives of this SBP-box gene subfamily, both showed enhanced caulonema side branch formation, a phenotype opposite to that of the ppcry1a/1b double disruptant line. In this report we show that PpCRY1a and PpCRY1b act negatively on the transcript levels of several related moss SBP-box genes and that at least PpSBP1 and PpSBP4 act as negative regulators of side branch formation

Nanosecond X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy using pulse time structure of a storage-ring source

X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) is a routine technique to study slow dynamics in complex systems at storage-ring sources. Achieving nanosecond time resolution with the conventional XPCS technique is, however, still an experimentally challenging task requiring fast detectors and sufficient photon flux. Here, the result of a nanosecond XPCS study of fast colloidal dynamics is shown by employing an adaptive gain integrating pixel detector (AGIPD) operated at frame rates of the intrinsic pulse structure of the storage ring. Correlation functions from single-pulse speckle patterns with the shortest correlation time of 192 ns have been calculated. These studies provide an important step towards routine fast XPCS studies at storage rings