Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

that physical working conditions in Polish enterprises pose a higher risk for early exit than
in Germany.
A modern understanding of occupational safety and health should take psychical hazards
(e.g. stress, work overload, tight working schedules) and social hazards (work climate,
teamwork) into account as well (Oppolzer 2006: 46ff). Preventive health management and
further training raise or preserve the physical and cognitive capabilities of older workers,
which are crucial for matching actual productivity of older workers with productivity
implied by seniority wages, and thus contribute to their retention (EC 2007: 91). Instead of
sheltered workplaces, labour medicine recommends to avoid unbalanced specialisation and
unbalanced stresses and introduce a diversification of work tasks (Dworschak 2006: 212;
Morschhäuser 2002: 18). Other ideas for an internalising work organisation include
teamwork, vertical careers and horizontal specialisation (Behrens 1999: 87ff, 104).
In practice, (German) firms do not utilise those recommendations. Externalisation is the
most frequent solution for physically impaired workers next to the provision of sheltered
workplaces (which have however been reduced in most companies) (Behrens 1999: 90;
Koller/Gruber 2001: 502), and only a minority of firms practice health management beyond
measures stipulated by law (Bellmann et al. 2007: 3).
4.1.5. Termination of the Employment Contract
In line with actor-centred institutionalism, firms choose that one among several strategic
options which costs them the least. Externalisation is cheaper for firms than career
development or workplace design and preferred in most cases as strategy for dealing with
impaired workers, as it is subsidised by the state (Behrens 1999: 111). At the end of the
1980s and well into the 1990s, the ´59 rule´ was more attractive to German firms than ATZ
(which at that time was possible only in the part-time model) as all costs could be shifted to
the statutory unemployment and pension insurance (Stück 2003: 10-11). Early retirement
via ATZ and other firm-based options is used in Germany in order to reduce personnel levels
in a ´socially acceptable´ way and in order to prevent dismissals (Stück 2003: 39;
Schmidt/Hartmann 1997: 116-7, 136; Teipen 2003). German firms practice the
externalisation strategy via early retirement with regard to older workers, which is uniform
across sectors (Rosenow/Naschold 1994: 249-250).
Whereas in Germany, the main reasons for the utilisation of early retirement for
personnel reductions are economic problems restricted to the given firm or branch
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