IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v28y2014i1p3-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

‘Commodifying institutions’: vertical disintegration and institutional change in German labour relations

Author

Listed:
  • Hajo Holst

Abstract

The article analyses the impact of vertical disintegration on German labour relations. Previous research argued that the proliferation of outsourcing, divestment and non-standard employment results in a ‘dualism’ between a core of secure workplaces and a growing fringe of precarious jobs. Evidence from two key sectors, metalworking and telecommunications, however, suggest that this clear-cut division is replaced by a fragmented landscape of labour relations. In terms of institutional change, the analysis reveals a specific form of incremental transformative change, namely a shift in the meaning of formally stable legal-political institutions. Even in the allegedly stable core areas, the institutions of labour relations are gradually transformed from market-constituting institutions to market-dependent variables. Vertical disintegration plays an important role in this process of institutional commodification. It not only moves the core–periphery boundary; it is also deployed to subjugate collective bargaining, workplace co-determination and the utilization of labour law to firm-level economic calculations.

Suggested Citation

  • Hajo Holst, 2014. "‘Commodifying institutions’: vertical disintegration and institutional change in German labour relations," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 28(1), pages 3-20, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:28:y:2014:i:1:p:3-20
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://wes.sagepub.com/content/28/1/3.abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ines Wagner, 2015. "The Political Economy of Borders in a 'Borderless' European Labour Market," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(6), pages 1370-1385, November.
    2. Valeria Pulignano & Andrea Signoretti, 2016. "Union Strategies, National Institutions and the Use of Temporary Labour in Italian and US Plants," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(3), pages 574-596, September.
    3. Andreas Kornelakis, 2016. "Inclusion or Dualization? The Political Economy of Employment Relations in Italian and Greek Telecommunications," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(2), pages 385-408, June.
    4. Hiroaki Richard Watanabe, 2018. "Labour Market Dualism and Diversification in Japan," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(3), pages 579-602, September.
    5. Ochsenfeld, Fabian, 2018. "The Relational Nature of Employment Dualization: Evidence from Subcontracting Establishments," SocArXiv ta4r6, Center for Open Science.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:28:y:2014:i:1:p:3-20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.