15,140 research outputs found

    Social Partnership in Germany: Lessons for U.S. Labor and Management

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    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\u27 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 partnership

    Conclusion: Uncertain Outcomes of Conflict and Negotiation

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    [Excerpt] To elaborate on each of these points, the findings presented in this book can be summarized as follows. First of all, the German model, that is, a social partnership approach to the negotiation of terms and conditions for the organization of an advanced market economy has worked in the past. We believe, on the basis of extensive collective research on different aspects of the political economy of the Federal Republic, both before and after unification, that the preservation of a reformed social partnership in Germany is highly desirable as an alternative to less regulated forms of capitalism in the contemporary world economy. Thus we disagree rather sharply with both conservative and liberal analysts who see the social market economy as an expensive and outdated relic of a welfare-state past. The evidence presented in this book also shows not only that social partnership is desirable but that it remains relatively intact. We have identified problems that must be solved for this to continue to be the case, but whatever the future holds, the basic institutions and practices of social partnership have been transferred into eastern Germany and continue to characterize political-economic relations in unified Germany. This remains true even in the face of major challenges presented by European integration, intensified global competition, a rapidly appreciating deutschmark, market imperatives for production reorganization (driven by Japanese-style lean production), and escalating collective bargaining conflict. Both employer associations and unions continue to play pattern-setting roles in wage negotiations, to set the framework for firm-level codetermination, and to engage in national, regional, and local negotiations over important aspects of economic and labor-market policy

    Revitalizing Labor In Today\u27s World Markets

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    [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\u27s 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\u27s 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, in spite of the long 1990s miniboom, don\u27t earn enough and don\u27t have enough voice in the workplace. The decline of the labor movement has gone hand in hand with growing economic and social polarization. Perhaps the best remedy, and certainly the one that allows workers themselves to solve these problems, is a revitalization of American unions. In today\u27s world economy, union revitalization requires both the capacity to organize and mobilize and a proactive willingness to use new strength and representation to contribute to firm and national competitiveness. German unions are strong to the extent they can do both of these, within an institutional environment that is far more supportive than that in which American unions must operate. German unions today, however, among many other problems, are being badgered by employers about the virtues of the American model, which in part means roll back the unions, to drive down labor costs and raise productivity. On their own turf, German unions have done a good job fending off the attacks. However, in the long run, their continuing influence may well depend on the strength of unions in other countries, throughout Europe and elsewhere. Especially in the United States, where a revival of the labor movement could do much to revise the American model and remove downward pressure on the German high road. The revitalization of the unions in the United States, therefore, is important not only for American workers and society, but for German unions and society as well. Economic growth and improved productivity and firm competitiveness may not require strong unions in the U.S. or Germany, but as past performance in many countries has shown, neither are strong unions incompatible with growth, productivity and competitiveness. Strong unions, we do know, raise wages, improve benefits and employment security, and offer protected representation in the workplace, all of which are all too often missing in the American workplace

    From Transformation to Revitalization: A New Research Agenda for a Contested Global Economy

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    [Excerpt] The revitalization perspective is hardly new. With deep roots in both labor movement history and industrial relations research, such work was marginalized for much of the postwar period both in union strategy and in the field of industrial relations. What is new is the rather sudden arrival of revitalization research in the mainstream of industrial relations along with a broader literature on contentious politics in a global economy (e.g., Klein, 2002; Delia Porta & Tarrow, 2004). This introductory article offers an overview of the revitalization perspective, deepened in relevance by contemporary struggles for democratic representation in the modern workplace and beyond

    Three Plants, Three Futures

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    To spread teamwork and cooperation, managers need to reform themselves—especially their attitudes about workers. At NUMMI, management has provided a system of work and rewards that has earned the loyalty of most employees and local union leaders

    The East in Open Conflict: The Great Strike of 1993

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    [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. To some extent, I use social partnership in this book to represent other, parallel processes of regularized negotiation throughout the German political economy. From the perspective of economic citizenship and democratic participation, however, social partnership itself is the most critical of social market mechanisms of negotiation and inclusion. And what is most remarkable, social partnership has not only coexisted with but proactively facilitated the strong export-oriented economic performance of the Federal Republic of Germany ever since its founding in 1949

    Gamblization: The Rise of Sports Gambling and the Need to Repeal PASPA

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    The National Gambling Impact Study Commission, in its final report to Congress, estimated American’s bet as much as $380 billion per year on sports, making it by far the largest form of illegal wagering, and that report was released in 1999. With the growth of the Internet and technology, there is no doubt that these staggering figures are far larger today. Based on the current structure, 99% of sports gambling continue to operate untaxed and unregulated in defiance of state and federal law. The time has come for the United States to repeal the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (“PASPA”) and develop modern laws to regulate the sports gambling industry and cash in on the billions of dollars it generates in revenue

    Social Partnership: An Organizing Concept for Industrial Relations Reform

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    [Excerpt] In this era of globalization and intensified world market competition, once stable relationships involving firms, unions and government have come under pressure everywhere. Here in the United States, a crisis of economic competitiveness, industrial relations instability, and union decline has generated a new openness to reform efforts, including a widespread willingness to learn from the successful practices of both domestic innovators and foreign competitors. Employers, for example, have increasingly moved to adopt lean and high-quality-oriented forms of organization as well as new participatory programs for employees. Unions have shown increasing interest in getting involved and providing input into the establishment and operation of such innovations. A new government wants to reform labor law to facilitate workplace change and labor-management cooperation. We still lack, however, broad concepts to inform a package of meaningful industrial relations and labor law reform. In this paper, I argue that social partnership, borrowed from the European Community, Germany, and numerous other societies, if adapted to particular American circumstances, is an ideal concept around which to organize and synthesize industrial relations reform in the United States
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