Sectoral collective agreements: remuneration straitjackets for German workplaces?

Pages963-977
Published date25 September 2007
Date25 September 2007
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/00483480710822454
AuthorMatthew M.C. Allen,Heinz‐Josef Tüselmann,Hamed El‐Sa'id,Paul Windrum
Subject MatterHR & organizational behaviour
Sectoral collective agreements:
remuneration straitjackets for
German workplaces?
Matthew M.C. Allen, Heinz-Josef Tu
¨selmann, Hamed El-Sa’id and
Paul Windrum
Manchester Metropolitan University Business School, Manchester, UK
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to map some of the diversity in employee relations in Germany that is
overlooked, first, within assessments of the German labour market that focus on the national level and
second, within separate studies in this area that emphasize attempts by employers to circumvent
important institutions.
Design/methodology/approach – The research adopts a quantitative approach to examine data
for German manufacturing and service sectors on both the spread of industry-wide collective
agreements and the extent to which workers are paid wage rates that are higher than those set out in
those agreements. It also assesses the prevalence of profit sharing and employee share ownership
schemes.
Findings – Industry-wide collective agreements are not the burden that they are often portrayed.
Actual wage rates and the prevalence of profit sharing and ESOSs make German workplaces more
heterogeneous than critics and advocates of the German economic model posit.
Research limitations/implications – The data are limited to Germany; however, Germany
occupies a prominent position, not just within much of the employment relations literature, but also in
terms of economic output. The research is also limited by an inability to provide evidence on
workplaces that undercut sectoral collective agreements and to disaggregate the data further by sector
and firm size/location.
Originality/value – The paper provides a counterpoint to the portrayals of employee relations in
Germany that often present a homogeneous picture of those relations. For the first time, data on the
spread of profit sharing and employee share ownership schemes in German workplaces at the sectoral
level are provided.
Keywords Employee relations,Company profit sharing schemes,Pay, Collective bargaining, Germany
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Employee relations in Germany are often portrayed as being homogeneous and
relatively static (see, for instance, Sinn, 2003, cf.,inter alios, Frege, 2003; Hassel, 2002;
Jackson, 2005). This holds true in the arguments put forward not only by those who
criticize the German economic model (Berthold, 2003; Siebert, 2005), but also by those
who seek to defend it (see, for example, many of the contributions in Hall and Soskice,
2001a). In such analyses, certain employee relations institutions are depicted as
ineluctable “givens”; these institutions are then said to have either a detrimental
(EEAG, 2004; Sinn, 2003) or a beneficial effect (Gerlach and Stephan, 2005; Hall and
Soskice, 2001a; Wagner, 1999) on companies. Where employers’ room for manoeuvre is
acknowledged, the focus is often on the ways in which employers attempt to sideline or
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
Sectoral
collective
agreements
963
Received April 2006
Revised September 2006
Accepted November 2006
Personnel Review
Vol. 36 No. 6, 2007
pp. 963-977
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/00483480710822454

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