Friday, March 14, 2014
Diplomat (Omni Shoreham)
German union density began to drop in the 1980s and the decline accelerated after unification. German labor leaders reacted to declining density in two stages. The initial response was a dramatic top-down structural transformation of the labor movement through a series of mergers between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s that reduced the number of unions by half and concentrated membership heavily into just two unions. This wave of mergers produced, in essence, a second postwar trade union movement. The organizing principle of the first postwar movement was industrial unionism. Multisectoral unionism is the hallmark of the second. This structural transformation largely restored financial stability to the unions, but it did not slow the density declines. In fact, it even left the new larger unions more vulnerable than ever to competition from small occupational unions. The second set of responses to continuing density declines began in the mid 2000s. The three biggest unions – IG Metall, ver.di and IG BCE – have pursued strikingly different courses. IG Metall has embraced a North American import – social movement unionism – and organizational decentralization designed to promote recruitment. IG BCE officials pinned their union’s survival on intensifying an already close social partnership with the employers associations in the chemicals industry. Ver.di has done little. Its rigid internal matrix structure for distributing power and resources has hampered organizational reform. IG Metall’s efforts have thus far proved most successful, but long-term success of the union’s approach to reversing membership decline remains an open question.
