The erosion of corporatism? The rescaling of industrial relations in Germany

Abstract:

By the 1980s, some scholars had already claimed that corporatism, as an expression and institution of the bilateral negotiations between trade unions and employers’ associations, had come to an end. This perception is stronger nowadays than it was then. Quite often it is argued that, as a result of economic liberalisation and the paradigm shift from Keynesianism to Monetarism, industrial relations are under pressure, and that this is accompanied by a weakening of trade union power. In this article, the development of collective negotiations and the new contours of corporatism are analysed with respect to Germany. At the moment we are witnessing a decentralisation of formerly central negotiations and their differentiation in the direction of collective and/or concession bargaining at the level of the firm. At the same time, there is an important trend towards the up-scaling of industrial relations to the European Union level. The central argument of the article, therefore, is that a rescaling of industrial relations is taking place, which does not necessarily mean an end to corporatism but, rather, profoundly new qualities of corporatism. In order to develop the argument, changes in industrial and political organisation are examined.