The increasing reliance on temporary agency
workers by large German manufacturers has changed industrial relations, reported
Hajo Holst,
Associate Professor at the University of Jena, to the transnational labour project
at the Centre for Advanced Study in Oslo. Large car manufacturers, for example,
have used temporary agency workers to secure short-term profits and to bypass
statutory dismissal protection. Trade unions and workers, on the other hand,
have increasingly come under pressure as a result.
The offensive by capital
Traditionally, temporary agency work was highly regulated in Germany and mainly used by companies to respond flexibly to short-term challenges in the production process. It was the 2003 change in legislation by a coalition government of Social Democrats and the Green Party deregulating temporary agency work, which facilitated the change in employers’ strategy. Now, several key companies have moved towards employing a significant number of their workers through temporary work agencies in order to be able to respond flexibly to changes in the economy and, thereby, to secure their short-term financial profits. Unsurprisingly, from 2003 until 2007, temporary agency work was the largest sector of employment growth, while it then became the largest sector of dismissals in the global economic crisis from 2007 onward. The risks of economic recession have been passed from employers to workers.
To date, only four per cent of the overall German workforce are temporary agency workers. However, the fact that there are between 10 to 20 per cent temporary agency workers of the overall workforce in large manufacturing companies such as Mercedes or BMW signifies the overall importance of this type of workers for German industrial relations. The most drastic example of the use of temporary agency workers is the brand new BMW plant in Leipzig in East Germany, where 40 per cent of the workforce is made up of temporary agency workers.
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| Photo by International Transport Forum |
The increasing use of temporary agency workers has drastic implications for workers and trade unions. First, being a temporary agency worker becomes less and less a route into permanent employment. Companies have to some extent stopped employing directly new workers themselves. Second, the fact that temporary agency workers are employed on lower salaries than their colleagues, although they are doing the same jobs, and that they face the constant threat of dismissal, should there be an economic recession, has a disciplining effect on permanent workers. The latter know that should they become unemployed, the only way back into employment may be as a temporary agency worker on less good conditions. This will affect their position on whether to criticise management and, unsurprisingly, it has become more difficult for trade unions to organise strike action.
The response by labour
Capital’s structural power vis-à-vis labour
has dramatically increased since the early 1970s and the onset of
globalisation. The BMW plant in Leipzig is again a good example here. When
negotiating with the trade union about the use of temporary agency workers, BMW
made clear that unless it gets its way it will build the plant in Slovakia
instead. Considering the high-level of unemployment in East Germany, the works
council of BMW felt that it had no alternative but to accept the level of 40
per cent of temporary agency workers.
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| Photo by IG Metall |
Workers themselves are ambivalent about their own situation, Hajo Holst reported. On the one hand, permanently employed workers regard temporary agency workers as a guarantee for their own jobs. In times of crisis, it is the latter who are made redundant. On the other hand, however, there is still a feeling of injustice about the fact that their co-workers do the same jobs for less money and under the constant risk of unemployment. Perhaps it is this ambivalence, which provides the seeds for an alternative trade union strategy based on solidarity? Equally, important, manufacturing workers are often high-skilled and cannot be replaced that easily. The power of workers in production should not be underestimated by trade unions.
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| Photo by IG Metall |
Clearly, the first precondition for a more active trade union position is to drop this idea of co-responsibility for company performance. Is this perhaps the time to re-politicise German trade unions and the process of collective bargaining? The continuing sense of injustice and solidarity amongst workers as well as the fact that highly-skilled workers cannot only not be replaced easily, but often know better how to run the production process itself may provide the basis for a more radical position against capital.
Key publications by Hajo Holst related
to his presentation:
Holst, Hajo (2013) ‘“Commodifying
Institutions” - Vertical Disintegration and Institutional Change in German Labour
Relations’, Work, Employment and
Society.
Prof. Andreas Bieler
Professor of Political Economy
University of Nottingham/UK
Personal website: http://andreasbieler.net
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