Zwischen Tradition, Strukturwandel und Shareholder Value – Arbeitgeberverbände in der Energiewirtschaft

The employers’ associations in the German energy sector are showing contradictory developments. On the one hand, they are still characterised by a high organisational density providing high collective bargaining coverage. Moreover, there are neither agreements on opening clauses for derogations nor ‘unbound’ employer associations to be observed in the sector. And, finally, the associations have a fairly high centralised administration. On the other hand, however, the associations show a high degree of membership orientation by organising the structures of the associations and collective bargaining around the interests of the big energy suppliers. Together, they have tried to enforce new collective bargaining strategies of pushing wages downwards and of preventing wage increases. These strategies have their origin in both the increasing economic difficulties which resulted from the “energy turn” and in shareholder-value oriented strategies of the big firms. Enabling wage reductions for core employees, they are functional equivalents for derogations or unbound associations. The future stability of collective bargaining structures will depend to a certain extent on the willingness of the big companies to remain vanguards of collective bargaining even if unions are developing conflict-oriented collective bargaining strategies.