Der Wandel der Unternehmens- und Arbeitsorganisation und seine Auswirkungen auf die Interessenbeziehungen zwischen Arbeitgebern und Arbeitnehmern (Change in the organisation of companies and labour and its effects on privities between employers and employees)

"The first main part of the article summarises empirical findings on the relevant dimensions of the reorganisation of work processes and company organisations. The 'new management concepts' are introduced as well as their objectives with regard to the rearrangement of organisation issues and the more diverse utilisation of human resources, as well as the guiding principles of the reorganisation: decentralisation, subjecting to the market laws, and self-regulation. The result of this change is, in addition to the decentralisation of the enterprise as a place of normative regulation of labour, the considerable lack of uniformity of the reorganisation processes. It nonetheless appears to be indisputable that the success of the reorganisation remains dependent on the active participation of the employees and their representation of interests. In the second main section the effects on the systems of labour regulation as well as the risks and opportunities for the representation of the employees are discussed. The thematic complexes are: human resource management, new tasks and functions for the works council, direct participation and representative co-determination, crisis and reform of the industry-wide wage agreement, representation-free zones. In the relationship between the two main players on the employee side, the works council and the trade union, a clear shift in emphasis is established in favour of the institution of the works council. With restrained optimism the article predicts that, in contrast to the USA and Great Britain, a decollectivation of German industrial relations and a dramatic expansion of the representation-free zones is improbable within the foreseeable future." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))