Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

2.4. Explanations at Collective Bargaining Level
Social partners can be located as a third actor besides the state and the employers in the
“early exit triangle of protection, production, and partnership” and as “mediating between
pull and push” (Ebbinghaus 2002: 332). Ebbinghaus arrived at an international typology of
a Nordic, Central European, Latin, Anglo-American and Japanese socio-economic model
(ibid: 180). In Western countries, social partners were an active co-decision-maker in the
framework of early exit and the utilisation of early exit pathways as a solution to labour
market problems was “partly due to unintended consequences of public benefits set up for
social purposes” (2002: 350). Moreover, early exit pathways were to a high extent
promoted or negotiated by social partners and served their interests.
For the analysis of negotiations between employee representatives and the management
at firm level, the theory of power as adapted by Nienhüser (1998) is helpful. It defines the
interests, the control options and the resources held by the two parties in the bargaining
process depending on the actor constellations. Nienhüser (1998: 252ff) states that the power
of the works council (and, if adapted to Polish conditions, of firm-level trade union
committees) is augmented if it is neither interested in re-election, nor in benefits to the
employees provided by the employer, nor in information about what happens in the firm.
The works council is also the more powerful, the greater control it has over social and
human capital, the higher the unionisation ratio and in case of a homogeneous workforce
and of representation in the supervisory board of the firm. A powerful works council is more
cooperative (ibid: 253). The management will be interested in the cooperation with the
works council the more, the more complex are the work processes and jobs. The cooperation
will entail a saving of transaction costs for the management (ibid: 255).
The theory of power adapted by Nienhüser (1998) to industrial relations and the model
of actors constellations in the field of early retirement depicted by Ebbinghaus (2002: 19-
20), in which social partners play a role in “mediating (…) push and pull factors”,
substantiate hypothesis 7: The institutional configuration of industrial relations
determines the process of deliberation on early exit at firm level. In Germany, the
management will be able to pursue early exit policies only in agreement with the works
council due to the institution of co-determination. In Poland, the management will be
able to push through its interest in early exit due to the presence of rivalling trade
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