THE WORKS CONSTITUTION ACTS AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS IN WEST GERMANY: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM.

This paper has a number of important objectives in the field of plant and company industrial relations, its primary focus being an examination of the German labor-management relationship as regulated by the 1952 and the recent 1972 Works Constitution Acts.[1] These Acts provide for the establishment and operation of a system of Works and Company Councils, and although the 1972 Act has largely replaced its predecessor, the provisions of the 1952 Act regulating the Supervisory Board system outside the coal, and the iron and steel industries still remain. This system of Supervisory Boards and the Works and Company Councils represent the most important cornerstones of worker participation in German industry. The possible extension of the Supervisory Board and European Works Council system across the European Economic Community could raise weighty political and industrial relations issues for Britain.
This paper considers the legislative provisions regarding the rights and powers of Works and Company Councils, including the co-decision-making rights in manpower and personnel policy, rights to effective consultation over production changes, the economic viability of the firm, intended changes in the organization, type, and location of the firm's productive activity, and labor's rights to involvement in the efficient running of the plant. The paper also considers the Economic Committee at company level, the role of the trade union in plant industrial relations affairs, an analysis of how the provisions of the 1952 Act have operated in practice and the likely effects of the 1972 Act on labor and management. An attempt will be made to draw relevant implications for the British industrial relations system with particular emphasis on the role of the shop steward: the purpose of such a comparison is to evaluate the possible benefits the British system of labor-management relations could derive from a formalization along German lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]