Institutional Transference and Changing Workplace Relations in Post Unification East Germany: A Case Study of Secondary Education Teachers

German Unification in 1990 was processed by the imposition of the `western' institutional framework on the former east. Legal, administrative and fiscal systems were transferred as part of the Unification Treaty together with the West German industrial relations machinery of co-determination in collective bargaining and participation at the level of the workplace. However the fact that the two Germanies had grown in different economic, social and ideological environments over the previous 40 years raises questions about the viability of such institutional transference. Feelings of `colonisation' and frustrated expectations have been identified as western dominance of officialdom and disappointment at the product of Unification has emerged in the east. Within the public sector these problems have been accompanied with ideological purges of public servants in social policy and education after investigation of past involvement with the former GDR secret police network.This article examines institutional transference with reference to the case of secondary education teachers. Disputes over wage equalisation, job cuts and non-recognition of former GDR teaching qualifications are examined together with attitudes of classroom teachers to the changing nature of their work, their status as teachers and their involvement as trade union participants in the German participatory system of industrial relations.