published in: British Journal of Industrial Relations, 2004, 42 (1), 125-148
This paper present paper provides the first results for Germany on the impact of works
councils and collective agreements on plant closings, using data from the IAB establishment
panel. We find evidence of a robust positive association between works council presence and
plant closures. The strictures of collective agreements do not seemingly affect closings. By
the same token, and contrary to some recent findings on other aspects of establishment
performance, the presence of a collective agreement does not attenuate the impact of local
workplace representation on closings. Our analysis does nothing to encourage a sanguine
view of recent legislation in Germany that facilitates the formation of works councils and
strengthens their codetermination powers.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.