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Using data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, this paper compares the earnings premium and employment share of jobs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) across 11 member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The results reveal that the STEM wage premium is higher in the United States than in any of the other comparison countries, despite the fact that the U.S. has a larger share of workers in STEM jobs. We also find evidence that the premium varies significantly across STEM sub-fields and education levels, and that the premium tends to be higher in countries with lower unionization rates, less employment protection, or a larger share of employment in the public sector.

This paper examines school management and policies in Germany and Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study, which is comparative and qualitative, explores the interrelationship between different levels of governance and the responses of teacher unions. The inquiry is informed by the perspectives of historical institutionalism and path dependency, and the document analysis is conducted by utilising the justification categories of value, collective, and formal and procedural driven arguments. We argue the contestation which occurred between different levels of school governance and the teacher unions amidst the pandemic created the potential for changes in policy settings and influence over the administration of schooling. However, there is no indication of fundamental shifts in the organisation, policy direction or control over schooling in Germany or Australia. Instead, there is a conformity to established institutional arrangements and path dependencies, which secure and protect the vested interests of the different policy actors.

The article provides a global picture of school social work in 2021 using data gathered by the International Network for School Social Work. School social work is a growing specialty around the world. There are school social workers practicing in more than 50 countries. School social workers support students' educational success, especially those who are marginalized by poverty, oppression, disability and other personal or social problems. Ideally school social workers practice within a multi-disciplinary team to address wide-ranging barriers to education and participate in preventive programs for all students. The article describes the growth of school social work around the world, various models of practice, the role of specialty professional associations, training and standards, and the growth of school social work literature. Changes in the role and practice of school social work since the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020/2021 are included. International communication among school social workers has grown via publications, conferences and the International Network for School Social Work, and continues to assist expansion of the specialty around the world. Implications for the future of social work in education are discussed, a list of national school social work associations is provided and references include literature on school social work from various countries.

Context: COVID-19 poses major challenges for vocational education and training (VET), as VET--in contrast to general education--is closely linked to the economic system and cannot escape the impact of current economic restrictions. Additionally, strict infection control regulations, as well as temporary school and company closures, inhibit the teaching of practical skills at the workplace. Rapid action by the responsible actors is essential to ensure that VET can take place even under these difficult conditions. It can be assumed that both the complex decision-making processes and the multiplicity of actors involved in collective training systems complicate or delay the reaction to this exogenous shock. Using the example of the German dual training system, this explorative article aims to examine the ability of collective training systems to deal with the challenges posed by the pandemic. Methods: Based on a document analysis, various publications (e.g., press releases, reports) by central actors of the German dual system were reviewed, which provided information about the provision of training activities as well as the measures taken or required to counteract the pandemic-related consequences for dual apprenticeships. This corpus of literature was expanded by scientific studies and publications from national or international institutions related to VET. Following a governance-analytical and actor-centred perspective, the documents were analysed with regard to the indications they provide about the realised coordination of action between the actors, the realised processes and outcomes, as well as the levels affected within the VET system. Findings: The way of dealing with the crisis demonstrates that the German dual system is influenced by the actions of various actors at multiple levels. Actors who are involved in the decision-making processes share common interests, resulting in a strategically bound cooperation among them. However, influence or power from bottom-up seems to be rather limited, as not all of the actors considered in this study are included in essential governance processes. Despite the comprehensive reactions to the pandemic, problems and optimisation needs are also apparent, e.g. with regard to vocational orientation or the support of vocational schools. Conclusion: Despite its complexity, the dual system as a collective training model is capable of acting and adapting to face the challenges posed by the pandemic. This may also be due to the historically entrenched corporatist structures within the dual system: Even in times of crisis, the trust in this historically evolved institutional framework leads to a high degree of accountability and cooperation among the decisive actors.

Questionnaire design is routinely guided by classic experiments on question form, wording, and context conducted decades ago. This article explores whether two question order effects (one due to the norm of evenhandedness and the other due to subtraction or perceptual contrast) appear in surveys of probability samples in the United States and 11 other countries (Canada, Denmark, Germany, Iceland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom; N = 25,640). Advancing theory of question order effects, we propose necessary conditions for each effect to occur, and found that the effects occurred in the nations where these necessary conditions were met. Surprisingly, the abortion question order effect even appeared in some countries in which the necessary condition was not met, suggesting that the question order effect there (and perhaps elsewhere) was not due to subtraction or perceptual contrast. The question order effects were not moderated by education. The strength of the effect due to the norm of evenhandedness was correlated with various cultural characteristics of the nations. Strong support was observed for the form-resistant correlation hypothesis.

In the history of vocational education and training, apprentices seldom feature as actors. They are also rarely mentioned among those affected by economic conditions and political measures. Studies of England and Scotland have shown that, over a period of decades, there was a widespread apprentice movement during the twentieth century. So far, studies of German-speaking areas have barely registered this and have solely concentrated on apprentice protests in the 1960s and 1970s. The present article addresses this desideratum, investigating the form and content of how apprentices articulated their interests in Switzerland between 1880 and 1950. The main reason why Switzerland never experienced major sustained apprentice protests was because of its corporatist organisation of vocational education policy. This policy meant that there was no space available for independent forms of protest as charitable organisations, industrial and occupational associations, trade unions and state agencies assumed the task of articulating the interests of apprentices.

The Popular Front line made the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) a more hospitable place for "brain workers." The emphasis the line placed on mass ideological and cultural struggle against fascism meant that they became important allies to be won for the working class. As the principal transmitters of ideology and culture to the masses, schoolteachers could be perceived as being at the forefront of the anti-fascist effort, just as important as the academics, artists, writers and musicians more traditionally associated with the pull of British communism in this period. But communist schoolteachers on the whole avoided the exploration of socialist ideas in their professional practice. Rather, their primary focus was on achieving the greatest possible unity against fascism in their profession. This stance largely excluded critical discussion of the theory or practice of the education of children under capitalism, such as combating imperialist bias in textbooks; ending corporal punishment; advocating secular education; promoting workers' control of schools and ameliorating the capitalistic nature of competitive examinations, all of which had been debated by communist teachers at various points during the 1920s. But as well as the tactical considerations of the Popular Front line, this avoidance of a qualitative critique of British schooling was encouraged by Soviet educational conservatism, and often overlooked continuities between the Popular Front line and its predecessor, "Class Against Class." Drawing on the personal papers of British communist schoolteachers, contemporary newspapers and periodicals, and policy statements of the CPGB in the period, this article seeks to shed light upon the communist contribution to the teacher politics of the labour movement in England and Wales during the late 1930s, an input hitherto unexplored in detail.

The link between formal education and national identities is widely acknowledged. Empirical research on national and supranational identities of teachers, however, is still relatively rare. Whilst a number of studies consider the special population of teachers, these contributions do not consistently focus on national and supranational identities. Based on a case study of 72 trainee teachers from Baden-Wurttemberg (Germany), the present paper looks at the reconcilability of national and European identities and explores notions of the European Union in terms of cultural and geographical inclusiveness. Findings on the case study level are considered in their own right, but also compared to findings on the regional, national and European level, using relevant Eurobarometer survey data. The article shows that high levels of attachment to nation and high levels of attachment to Europe do not have to be mutually exclusive. It also demonstrates that, for most trainee teachers, the European Union constitutes a culturally and geographically inclusive institution that is supposed to stand for cultural diversity, peace, freedom and respect of human rights. Through comparisons that go beyond the case study level, the paper recognises the importance of regional and national contexts. Nonetheless, it argues that some of its findings are likely to be relevant for studies of national and European identities across different European societies. (Contains 3 tables, 1 figure and 8 notes.)

In this article, the authors introduce a new feature to model the collective bargaining process: a two-level game setting with direct learner-expert interaction. In the simulation ZUG UM ZUG 2015, participants form union and management negotiation teams to negotiate with each other (first level) and with a management or union "tariff commission," which has to approve proposed contracts (second level). To increase the degree of realism and the teaching effectiveness of the simulation, real-world negotiation experts negotiate in tariff commissions directly with participants. The authors also introduce a negotiation process to facilitate an efficient knowledge transfer from experts to learners. (Contains 3 figures and 1 table.)

The Euroregions are a form of border and cross-border cooperation. The Euroregion Neisse (D)-Nisa (CZ)-Nysa (PL) is one of four Euroregions along the German-Polish border. It was established in 1991 by the Union of Polish Communities (ERN), The Union of German communities (ERN), and the Regional Community Union of the Cities and Communities of the Northern Czech Republic as the first Euroregion in this part of Europe. A number of initiatives in the economy, environmental protection, the development of public transportation, tourism, and culture have been undertaken since its founding. Since knowledge of the entire cross-border region--its geographic, structural, economic, sociocultural, and historical conditions--is necessary to develop a common identity among borderland inhabitants, there are "small" projects that has been undertaken to enable the inhabitants of the Euroregion Neisse (D)-Nisa (CZ)-Nysa (PL) to get to know each other and break down the prejudices that exist on both sides of the border. In this article, the authors describe one such particular project, "A Home in a Europe of Regions: A Contribution of School Education." This project is a product of the Center for Research and Development of Practice in the Teaching Profession (CRDP) of the University of Leipzig and is intended to intensify contacts between German, Polish, and Czech schools and further advance already existing initiatives within a framework of pedagogical research and concrete school practical experience. [This report was translated by Stephen D. Naron.] (Contains 4 notes.)

A distinctive feature of the British approach until the 1960s was that vocational education and training (VET) should be provided by employers. This is conventionally contrasted with the much more formal state coordinated approach of Germany. The question posed is whether the British style was the "spontaneous order" that results because markets use information efficiently about the supply of and demand for skills. Alternatively, was it "spontaneous disorder" in which the absence of standards and coordination led to underinvestment in VET and economic decline relative to those countries with strong leadership in education and training? There is considerable evidence in the twentieth century that Britain suffered from shortcomings in the availability of highly trained labour. The most credible explanation is the organisation and operation of the VET system; the perceived self-interests of undereducated employers and restrictive unions during booms and slumps provided inadequate conditions for efficient employer-led education and training. (Contains 1 figure, 4 tables, and 27 notes.)

States Norwegian Nazi leader, Vidkun Quisling, attempted to control dissenting Norwegian teachers by developing a compulsory union. Reports Nazi beliefs centered on controlling teachers, curriculum, and textbooks as a key to success. Notes Norwegian teachers' refusal to comply with the union scheme stymied Norwegian Nazi leaders' plans for expansionism and indoctrination. (KDR)

Maintains that reunification allowed teacher unions of the former West Germany to move into the former East Germany, filling a structural void left by the dissolution of the Communist Party. Specifically examines the reactions of newly elected teacher union leaders from the former East Germany to subsequent events in the education and political arenas. (MJP)

Describes trade-union based psychosocial counseling program which has been used with the unemployed in Germany. Gives rationale for psychosocial counseling approach in this situation. Outlines tasks and characteristics, major problem areas and problem-solving strategies, crisis intervention, referral to other services, group seminars, and support for legal and educational counseling. Includes a case example of coping with unemployment. (Author/PVV)

Employment relations scholars argue that industrial relations institutions reduce low pay among the workforce, while the insider-outsider literature claims that unions contribute to increase the low-pay risk among non-union members. This article tests these expectations by distinguishing, respectively, between the individual effect of being a union member or covered by collective agreements and the sectoral effect of strong trade unions or encompassing collective agreements. Findings from multilevel logistic regression analyses of the German Socio-Economic Panel reveal that unions and bargaining coverage have distinct effects at individual and sectoral level. The analysis of their cross-level interactions provides partial support to both the insider-outsider approach, since non-union members are more exposed to the risk of low pay in highly unionized sectors, and to the power resource perspectives, since the probability of being in low pay in sectors with encompassing collective agreements decreases also for those workers who are not covered by them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we investigate labour struggles under the condition of digital capitalism. The main research question we address is: How do German unions evaluate and respond to the rapidly accelerating digitalisation of economy and work? Based on a series of interviews with union representatives in Germany, we trace recent developments within an increasingly digitised economy, outlining challenges and opportunities for unions. Our findings show that the large-scale deployment of digital technologies fragments the workforce, reduces social standards, worsens working conditions, and exacerbates power imbalances to the detriment of the employed. These disadvantages are only insufficiently met with new opportunities to raise public awareness and connect with and mobilise workers by means of digital communication technologies. Our study suggests a growing significance of technological expertise for unions, a need to meet global capital with enhanced international and regional cooperation among labour organisations, and the importance of uniting established unions and grassroots workers' movements in shared struggles to improve the situation of workers under technologyenhanced conditions of globalised exploitation and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Industrielle Beziehungen is the property of Rainer Hampp Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article develops a multi-level framework for the analysis of a bottom-up politics of technology at the workplace. It draws on a multi-case study on algorithmic management of manual labor in manufacturing and delivery platforms in Germany. In researching how workers influenced the use of algorithmic management systems, the concept of technopolitics is developed to refer to three different arenas of negotiation: (1) the arena of regulation, where institutional framings of technologies in production are negotiated, typically between state actors, employers' associations, and unions. (2) The arena of implementation, where strategies of technology deployment are negotiated—in the German production model typically between management and works council. (3) The arena of appropriation, in which different organizational technocultures offer contesting schemes for the actual use of technology at work. Whereas most recent research on digitalization of work conceptualizes workers as mere objects of digitalization processes, this paper focuses on worker agency as a "technopolitics from below." It thus demonstrates how workers influence the concrete outcome of digitalization projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under what conditions can unions successfully regulate precarious employment? We compare the divergent trajectories of collective bargaining on agency work in the Italian and German metal sectors from the late 1990s. We explain the differences by the interaction between trade unions' institutional and associational power resources, mediated by employers' divide-and-rule strategies and by union strategies to (re)build a unitary front. In both countries, the liberalization of agency work allowed employers to exploit labour divides, undermining unions' associational power and preventing labour from negotiating effectively. However, while Italian unions remained 'trapped' in the vicious circle between weak legislation and fragmented labour, German unions were able to overcome their internal divides. The different degree of success depended on the nature of the divides within the labour movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A statutory minimum wage has been introduced in Germany, in the face of business opposition but abetted by union support. The political coalition in favour of minimum wage regulation brought together the centre-left and the centre-right with the argument that regulation is needed to prevent disfunctional interaction between low wages and the social security system. Thus, the dualization which characterizes Germany’s inegalitarian form of co-ordinated capitalism has provoked a corrective political response. The contribution traces the long path to government intervention and assesses why employers were unable, or unwilling, to pre-empt intervention by maintaining the coverage of collective bargaining. It is argued that market liberalization has had a paradoxical effect on employer power: intense domestic as well as international competition has reduced employers’ capacity to act strategically to fend off regulation by the government. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ECtHR 5 July 2022, app. no. 815/18 (Association of Civil Servants and Union for Collective Bargaining v. Germany), Unions, Collective Agreements: It can be within the State's margin of appreciation to adopt legislation which renders conflicting collective agreements concluded by minority trade unions inapplicable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In theoretical trade models with variable mark-ups and collective wage bargaining, exposure to international markets might reduce the exporter wage premium. We test this prediction using linked German employer-employee data covering the years 1996-2007. To separate the rent-sharing mechanism from assortative matching, we exploit individual worker information to construct profitability measures that are free of skill composition. Our results show that rent-sharing is less pronounced in more export-intensive firms or in more open industries. The exporter wage premium is highest for low-productivity firms. In line with theory, these findings are unique to the subsample of plants covered by collective bargaining. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the freedom of service provision is one of the pillars of the Single Market Project, such deregulation clashes with national wage regulation and social policy-making. This article examines recent attempts by the European Commission to further promote liberalization, epitomized in the so-called 'Bolkestein Directive', as well as three case studies of political conflict involving the transnational posting of workers within the framework of service liberalization in Ireland, Sweden and Germany. Re-regulation of service provision by governments is crucially affected by the lobbying efforts of trade unions and employers. Internal organizational characteristics of labour market interest associations are crucial in predicting their effectiveness. The deregulatory effects are felt most severely in Germany, while even in Sweden the former gentlemen's agreement can no longer be sustained without serious modification. In France, no conflict unfolded. In Ireland, a business-friendly comprise emerges, whilst the European Union directive was severely watered down, though not neutered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from German manufacturing establishments, this article examines the relationship between works councils and employment growth. Taking the endogeneity of councils into account, the estimates show a positive growth effect of works councils. This suggests that the performance-enhancing voice role of German works councils dominates their monopoly role. Moreover, the findings of this study support the hypothesis that workers are more likely to implement a council to protect their quasi-rents when the establishment is facing a long-term crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite recent changes in the relationship between unionism and various indicators of firm performance, there is one seeming constant in the Anglophone countries: unions at the workplace are associated with reduced employment growth of around −2.5% a year. Using German data, we examine the impact of the works council—that country's form of workplace representation—on employment change from 1993 to 2001. The German institution appears to have much the same negative effect on employment growth. That said, survival bias seems to play a small role, and works councils do not seem to further slow the tortuous pace of employment adjustment in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Industrielle Beziehungen is the property of Rainer Hampp Verlag and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)