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Wages, collective bargaining and economic development in Germany: Towards a more expansive and solidaristic development?

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  • Bispinck, Reinhard
  • Schulten, Thorsten

Abstract

During the last decades, German industrial relations have undergone significant changes leading to a partial erosion and fragmentation of collective bargaining as well - and more fundamentally - to a significant change in power relations and the weakening of trade unions. As a result, wage developments in the 2000s in Germany became rather moderate with a growing differentiation among sectors, a sharply rising incidence of low wages and an overall decline of the wage share. This moderate wage development also influenced Germany's overall economic development model as it significantly dampened private demand and thereby promoted a growing discrepancy between a flourishing export industry and a largely stagnating domestic sector. More recently, there have been some indications that German wage policy might change again in a somewhat more expansive and solidaristic direction.

Suggested Citation

  • Bispinck, Reinhard & Schulten, Thorsten, 2014. "Wages, collective bargaining and economic development in Germany: Towards a more expansive and solidaristic development?," WSI Working Papers 191, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:wsidps:191
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    1. Schulten, Thorsten & Schulze-Buschoff, Karin, 2015. "Sector-level strategies against precarious employment in Germany: Evidence from construction, commercial cleaning, hospitals and temporary agency work," WSI Working Papers 197, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    2. Monika Martišková & Marta Kahancová & Jakub Kostolný, 2021. "Negotiating wage (in)equality: changing union strategies in high-wage and low-wage sectors in Czechia and Slovakia," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 27(1), pages 75-96, February.
    3. Donato Di Carlo, 2020. "Understanding wage restraint in the German public sector: does the pattern bargaining hypothesis really hold water?," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 185-208, May.
    4. Di Carlo, Donato, 2018. "Does pattern bargaining explain wage restraint in the German public sector?," MPIfG Discussion Paper 18/3, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    5. Anne Dufresne, 2015. "The trade union response to the European economic governance regime. Transnational mobilization and wage coordination," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 21(2), pages 141-156, May.

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