Industrial Relations : Germany

Agreements on pay, working hours, holidays and general working conditions are freely negotiated between labor and management, who are often called “social partners” in Germany. Their central organizations - the trade unions and the employers’ associations - thus play an important role. Although their main task is to represent their members’ interests with both determination and a sense of proportion, they also bear considerable responsibility for the economy as a whole. Their disputes can profoundly affect the functioning of the economic system.

Labor and employers in the Federal Republic have always been aware of this responsibility. The system’s stability is due largely to them. This reflects the advantages of the kind of trade unionism that developed in western Germany after the war. The unions in Germany are “unitary unions” in a double sense: Each represents all the workers in an entire branch of industry (i-e. not only the members of a certain trade), and they are neutral; they have no party or religious ties.