Holding the Shop Together: German Industrial Relations in the Postwar Era

摘要

The German system of industrial relations tends to strike the British observer as both alien and familiar at the same time. Alien, because German ways are not as ours: sector-level bargaining, legally enforceable collective agreements, works councils and employee board-level participation. Yet familiar because-since the collapse of the Berlin Wall-the burgeoning 'varieties of capitalism' literature has generally presented Germany as the paradigm coordinated market economy that contrasts with the UK as a liberal market economy. We have accordingly become familiar with the role of banks, supply chains and the stock market in the development of German 'patient capital', and how they all fit into the broader jigsaw of economic and social relationships. The problem is that this familiarity can become ossified. Our understanding of 'the German model' risks degenerating into a glib stereotype that we trundle out whenever its suits us to find a contrast to the ever-liberalising tendencies in the UK. 'If only we were more like the Germans' becomes a refrain based on an image, a perception of Germany rather than-maybe-the German 'reality' of a society itself undergoing deep, individualising change in its own way. The challenge, then, is to remain alive to the complexities of the continuing evolution of the model, a challenge that might prove particularly demanding for non-German speakers. So for this reason, I wholeheartedly welcome this new book by Stephen J. Silvia on German industrial relations in the postwar era.