The (paradoxical) Erosion of Industrial Citizenship. the Case of Germany

Democratic employee participation has improved during the second half of the 20th century. According to T.H. Marshall, the increase of civil, political and social rights is a clear indicator for this development. T.H. Marshall's approach of the evolution of social and industrial citizenship was widely accepted as an evolutionary success story for the postwar era. In this paper I argue that fundamental changes have taken place since the end of the 20th century. Germany was a good case for Marshall’s ideas, since the welfare state expanded and democratic employee participation has improved during the second half of the 20th century continuously.

For this purpose the concept of post-democracy will be applied to the field of industrial relations. It will be assumed that the politics of post-democracy are currently shaping industrial relations and the area of co-determination in particular. In recent years the institutional pillars of German Capitalism have eroded significantly, in particular the density of trade unions, employer associations and the coverage of collective bargaining (Streeck 2009). The political constellation of post-democracy is currently shaping industrial relations and the area of co-determination in particular. The main thesis is that co-determination remains stable in formal terms, but is eroding endogenously. Inequality rose simultaneously, while social security and upward social mobility decreased. I argue that given the erosion of the German model of capitalism we can observe a severe decline in industrial citizenship for the first time in postwar history. In particular social and industrial rights have been curtailed. Formally the differentiation of rights and their institutions remain relatively robust, but the increase in precarious employment is leading to a new stratification as the empirical research (quantitative data and case studies) on temporary work and contract work in their corporate contexts indicates. Here, temporary and contract workers are confronted with serious deficits in rights compared to the permanent workforce – endangering co-determination from the inside. One of the paradoxes in the findings is that industrial citizenship in the nation state is partly in decline through the broadening of basis economic citizenship rights in Europe. Migrant workers in contract work are substituting traditional forms of employment relations with high levels of social protection and integration.