When Does Regulation Bite? Co-Determination and the Nature of Employment Relations

Uschi Backes-Gellner, Jens Mohrenweiser and Kerstin Pull

No 147, Working Papers from University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU)

Abstract: The German Codetermination Law grants workers of establishments with 200 or more employees the right to have a works councillor fully exempted from his regular job while still being paid his regular salary. We analyze theoretically and empirically how this de jure right to paid leave of absence translates into practice and explicitly take into account the nature of the industrial relations participation regime. We find the right of exemption to make no difference in cooperative employment relations, but to develop its bite in adversarial rela-tions, i.e. when – without legal enforcement – the legislator’s intent would not be realized.

Keywords: Works councils; employment relations; de facto and de jure consequences of legal regulations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J53 K31 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 22 pages
Date: 2011-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-hrm, nep-lab and nep-reg
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iso:wpaper:0147

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