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To merge or not to merge? The impact of union merger decisions on workers' representation in G ermany
Author(s) -
Behrens Martin,
Pekarek Andreas
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
industrial relations journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.525
H-Index - 3
eISSN - 1468-2338
pISSN - 0019-8692
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2338.2012.00700.x
Subject(s) - merge (version control) , collective bargaining , representation (politics) , politics , trade union , variety (cybernetics) , political science , independence (probability theory) , economics , labour economics , law , artificial intelligence , computer science , mathematics , information retrieval , statistics
Union mergers have been widely studied in a variety of countries; however, little is known about their impact on union effectiveness. This article draws on in‐depth interviews with officials and works councillors from four G erman unions, as well as on a representative survey of G erman works councils, to analyse how a union's merger status shapes its effectiveness in three spheres of activity: political lobbying, collective bargaining and establishment‐level interest representation. We compare two cases of merger with two cases of continued organisational independence, finding that merger outcomes for individual unions vary considerably across our three union functions.