Drawing on a large-scale study of German works councils, the author investigates whether and how works councils contribute to resolving work-related conflict under the severe conditions caused by the pandernic.

The new book provides an all-encompassing commentary on the EU Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages. Torsten Müller and Thorsten Schulten show how the directive aims to strengthen collective bargaining.

A new study gives an excellent overview of the initiatives currently under way to strengthen collective bargaining in the member states of the EU. Torsten Müller and Thorsten Schulten have provided expert input on Germany.

In this pilot project, Eurofound successfully established the feasibility of, and piloted, an EU-wide database of minimum pay rates contained in collective agreements related to low-paid workers.

Wages have fallen behind inflation, while profit-taking has not only fuelled price rises but reduced the labour share – a significant problem for distributional justice, with socially explosive potential.

The book offers a comprehensive comparative overview of the development, structure, and policies of trade unions in all 27 Member States of the EU from 2000 to 2020. Torsten Müller and Thorsten Schulten analyze the developments in Germany.

Employees in the EU have suffered a dramatic loss of purchasing power: Real wages have fallen by 4 % in 2022 because of persistent inflation – driven initially by energy prices, but increasingly by higher profit margins.

Job retention schemes during Corona were designed in quite different ways in the EU member states. An analysis with a view to the role of collective bargaining policy and employee representation structures and a list of criteria for minimum standards that good systems should comply with

Real wages could fall by 2.9 per cent in the European Union in 2022. The depth and breadth of this wage decline are unprecedented. To avoid workers alone paying the bill for Putin’s war, fair wage settlements are needed.

Based on a large-scale study of German employees, this paper examines whether and how the institutions of the dual system of employee representation in Germany have succeeded in mitigating the impact of the pandemic on employees.

More and more of EAs´ member companies choose not to be covered by a multi-employer agreement. The study presents organizational functions and structures and examines the causes of the ongoing weakening of multi-employer bargaining in Germany.

The EU minimum wages directive is a milestone in the fight against in-work poverty. Now, it is more than ever up to the national political actors to raise minimum wages significantly and to strengthen collective-bargaining coverage.

The new report provides an overview of collective bargaining agreements by industry and region, branch-level minimum wages, and collective bargaining regulations on workloads and working hours.

The German Ministry of Labor has presented a draft Minimum Wage Increase Act, which is also a strong signal of support for the EU Minimum Wage Directive.

EU minimum wages: In comparison with the original commission proposal, the EMPL report adopted on 25.11.2021 marks a clear improvement. The confirmation by the plenary of the European Parliament has strengthened the negotiation mandate.

The erosion of collective bargaining and approaches for a re-strengthening: Organizing, the extension of collective agreements and labour clauses in public procurement. Presentation at the FES-UGT conference in Lisbon

The adoption of the EC-Directive on adequate minimum wages would mark a significant step towards a more “Social Europe”. The debate on the directive is, however, shaped by various political and legal fault lines so that its adoption is anything but certain.

Employing cross-country comparisons, sector studies and single country accounts of change, this new book relates institutional and labour market settings, actors’ strategies and power resources with policy and practice outcomes.

Coalition Dynamics in the German Union Movement: What drives union strategy? Selective benefits or public goods? Taking the German case over the period 1964 to 2018, the article investigates the logics shaping unions coalitions.

The 2020 bargaining round took place in a context dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic: Agreed pay rose by an average of 2.0 per cent in 2020, i.e. due to Corona, at a much lower rate than in preceding years.

The EU Commission's minimum wage initiative aims to achieve adequate minimum wages that enable employees to enjoy a decent standard of living wherever they work. 60% of the median wage is needed for this - but Germany is still a long way from achieving this.

The Occupational Safety and Health Control Act: a major step forward for better working conditions in the meat industry. The next step: the active involvement of all employees in trade union structures and co-determination.

Labour costs in the German meat industry have been significantly lower than in other major European meat-producing countries. Will the new German legal framework lead to an end to wage-dumping?

Low-cost production exploiting migrant workers: our new report highlight the need for action against cheap production and poor working conditions in the German meat industry. New legislation banning contract work is a chance for better working conditions. Also urgently needed: an industry-wide collective agreement.

The draft minimum-wage directive is a crucial first step but more needs to follow on the way to a social Europe.

In June the European Commission published a further consultation paper on possible measures to introduce fair minimum wages in the European Union. It remains open, however, what exactly the commission means by ‘fair minimum wages’ and how they can be guaranteed.

The study provides a comparative overview of the current minimum wage situation in all 27 EU countries plus the UK and shows how urgent the problem of 'in-work poverty' is in the EU.

The meaning of short-time work in different EU countries, and the importance of the SURE program

About 27% of all employees in the EU, UK and Switzerland are working short time. How do support schemes differ across Europe? What are the key criteria for a fair short-time work scheme in times of COVID-19?

With a nominal increase of 2.9 per cent for 2019, agreed pay rose nearly as much as in the preceding year. Set in the context of the past two decades, this represents one of the highest rates of increase and was exceeded only, and then only marginally, in 2014 and 2018. Given the modest and falling rate of consumer price inflation of 1.4 per cent, real pay grew by 1.5 per cent in 2019.

Minimum wages are often set only at a rather low level, which does not allow for a decent standard of living. More recently, however, many European countries have seen political initiatives for a more substantial increase of minimum wages. As analysed by Thorsten Schulten (WSI) and Torsten Müller (ETUI), these initiatives fit quite well to the concept of a European minimum wage policy.

The system of German industrial relations aroused lively interest following the corporatist crisis management of 2009/2010, which was credited with ‘Germany’s jobs miracle’. In 2019, it is apparent that although works councils and multi-employer collective bargaining are still alive, labour relations as a whole are undergoing substantial changes.

Germany after the crisis: the economy has recovered, unemployment has fallen. However, many challenges for trade unions remain: precarious jobs, digitalisation, the decline of collective bargaining coverage. New aspects: The shift to the far-right in society and the migration caused by the global refugee crisis touching the question of trade union solidarity. The brochure provides information on the political context, recent membership development and density, along with assessments on approaches and controversies concerning trade union policies.