ext_64002 ([identity profile] dobrovolets.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] sabotabby 2006-03-29 05:35 pm (UTC)

Yeah, in Germany the union leaders serve on the boards of the companies, and there are "works councils" in several factories with joint union and management representation to deal with disciplinary and production issues. It means that on the one hand German unions don't give management the kind of absolutely free reign over production issues that their U.S. counterparts conceded after World War II, but it also means that they're even more tightly incorporated into the notion of "pitching in for the common good," i.e., for the health of shareholders' profits. The whole system is an odd hybrid of survivals of the workers' councils that arose in the 1918 revolution that overthrew the Kaiser and ushered in the Weimar Republic, the corporatist measures devised by the Nazi regime, and efforts by postwar Social Democrats to ensure industrial peace and business growth.

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