German Trade Unions and The EU Minimum Wage Debate: Between National Elite and Transnational Working Class

Abstract

AbstractMona Aranea’s chapter focuses on German trade unions’ engagement with the European Commission initiative for fair minimum wages in Europe. The minimum wage initiative constitutes an attempt for a countermovement from above against an unregulated and thus unsustainable European labour market (Harriss, Global Labour Journal 1:9–10, 2010; Seeliger and Sommer, Culture, Practice & Europeanization 4:5–23, 2019). The research considers how far German unions can formulate political positions at EU-level that are distinct from or opposed to employer views. In the current context of widespread worker discontent towards the EU, trade unions are often perceived as members of discredited elites rather than defenders of working-class interests. Indeed in Germany, trade unions are deeply embedded within the traditional national elites. Trade union representatives participate in company management as members of supervisory-boards. Employees enjoy comparatively high levels of representation through works councils and via collective bargaining mechanisms. German multinational corporations also benefit disproportionately from Europe’s integrated yet disembedded labour market (Hardy, Capital & Class 38:143–155, 2014). Within this context, German unions have managed to secure partial benefits for workers. For example, the powerful alliance between unions and employers in the metal and chemical sectors has in the past regularly resulted in comparatively high wage increases despite being exposed to high rates of global competition (Lehndorff, S. (2012). Ein Triumpf gescheiterter Ideen. Warum Europa tief in der Krise steckt. Zehn Länder-Fallstudien. VSA., p. 94; see also Schulten, T. (2018). Wie hoch ist der Tarifabschluss in der Metallindustrie tatsächlich? Makronom 13 February 2018, available at https://makronom.de/ig-metall-tarifpolitik-wie-hoch-ist-der-tarifabschluss-in-der-metallindustrie-tatsaechlich-25316.). The large industry unions IG Metall and IG BCE tend to operate as part of a distributional coalition with employers (Höpner, Leviathan 35:310–347, 2007). This chapter considers how German unions’ deep embeddedness within national industrial elites generates relatively high levels of influence on the part of organised labour, but also high sensitivity for employer demands in a national competitive alliance.