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The Effectiveness of Co-Determination Laws in Cooperative and Adversarial Employment Relations: When Does Regulation Have Bite?

Backes-Gellner, U., Mohrenweiser, J. and Pull, K., 2015. The Effectiveness of Co-Determination Laws in Cooperative and Adversarial Employment Relations: When Does Regulation Have Bite? Economic and Industrial Democracy, 36 (2), 215 - 238.

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DOI: 10.1177/0143831X13501002

Abstract

The German Codetermination Law grants workers of establishments with 200 or more employees the right to have a works councillor who is fully exempted from his or her regular job duties while still paid a regular salary. This article analyses theoretically and empirically how this de jure right to exemption translates into de facto practice, and explicitly takes into account the nature of the employment relations participation regime. It is found that the right of exemption has no effect in cooperative employment relations because exemptions are granted even in the absence of legal rights, but does make a difference in adversarial relations when exemptions are only granted above the threshold where legal rights force employers to do so, i.e. legal rights do make a decisive difference in exactly those situations where the legislators’ intent would not be realized without the right to legal enforcement

Item Type:Article
ISSN:0143-831X
Uncontrolled Keywords:Codetermination labour–management cooperation participation worker representation works councils
Group:Bournemouth University Business School
ID Code:22623
Deposited By: Symplectic RT2
Deposited On:07 Oct 2015 15:37
Last Modified:14 Mar 2022 13:53

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