THE NEW GERMAN CORPORATISM

IUR The German trade unions operate under severe restraints. They cannot move in a single direction without running into the law of the land.

So powerful and all-pervasive is the legal framework that many of the laws are written directly into the constitution of the Federal Republic.

In many areas of industrial relations, compulsory arbitration is the rule. And the labour court judge always has the casting vote if the employer and the union still cannot agree.

In other areas where the unions are still relatively free to fight on for their rights, they are hedged in by other laws, such as the one requiring a 75-per-cent majority for any strike vote to be legally carried.

German trade union leaders think they are well off. They point to the undoubtedly excellent social security benefits they enjoy, such as a basic retirement pension of 60 per cent of the current average pay of the trade in which a pensioner formerly worked.

They tend to identify the great improvement in living standards since the war with the industrial relations system, known as l Mitbestimmung, or co-determination.

In fact, the German trade unions have made certain INDUSTRIAL financial gains out of their collective - bargaining, mainly due to the economic success Germany temporarily enjoyed all the time the inflationary boom lasted. The permanent huge demand for labour put the unions in a strong position. ROYSTON BULL consulted on virtually all matters by the management: piece - rates, job - evaluation, working times, training, welfare, hiring, firing, workallocation, safety, redundancies, closures, works-moves, and general production and economic questions.

On all these matters, any dispute between employer and works council must go to arbitration, either at a conciliation committee, where the key role is played by the 'independent' chairman, who is appointed by the local labour court, or at the court itself, where the judge is decisive.

The company pays all of the works council's expenses, and in the larger enterprises the chairman and other members are often relieved from production work altogether for full-time 'counselling'.

The employer can go to all meetings and has the right to Worse than that, the trade union is specifically excluded from playing an official role within individual factories. Everything is left to the works council.

Unofficial In practice, most of the workers on the councils are also trade unionists, but the union cannot officially nominate candidates. Any trade union "list' must circulate unofficially. ...

The trade unions' official role in Germany is an industry-wide one. They negotiate national and regional agreements on basic pay and conditions.

They clearly do influence the factory-based works councils, but since they are not seen daily to be taking the leading role, union recruiting is consequently weakened. Only 30 per cent of German workers are in unions, compared to over 40 per cent in Britain.

And • full-time trade union officials are not always allowed into factories to lead their members in a particularly difficult struggle. In weaker plants, it means that managements can carve up an inexperienced works council.

And the fact that the works council is not a trade union body and is specifically restricted in its activities to what goes on in that particular factory means that industry-wide shop-floor campaigning during a national wages struggle is inhibited to some extent.

The existence of the works councils also means that the position of shop stewards in German industry is jeopardized. Officially, there is no role for them to play in the factory. In practice, they are a growing force and friction with the employers is on the increase.

The fighting capacity of the German workers, in fact, has created a dual system of trade union representation. But the