Arbeitgeberverbände – auf dem Weg in den Dualismus?

Are employers’ associations still one of the main sources of stability for the German system of employment relations? Discussing both the processes of external and internal erosion, the article seeks to answers this question. “External erosion” hereby refers to issues of declining membership of employers’ associations. As the analysis reveals, membership decline manifests itself in the form of a gradual adjustment to changing company structures rather than as employers “fleeing” their associations. The term “internal erosion”, in addition, captures a development, whereby membership in employers’ associations is systematically separated from collective bargaining coverage. Somewhat opposing the popular hypothesis of a “dualization” of the German political economy the paper argues that a stabilization of a core is not necessarily pursued at the expense of the periphery. As the analysis reveals, it is mostly small and medium-sized companies from the “periphery” which seek to gain a competitive advantage by way of escaping from collective bargaining coverage.