Unions and Employers' Associations in Germany: A Survey of Their Membership, Density and Bargaining Coverage

Claus Schnabel

No 17615, IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER

Abstract: Trade unions and employers' associations play an important role in Germany not only in wage setting, but also in social policy and labour market regulation. While the majority of companies are organised in employers' associations, less than one fifth of employees are still members of a trade union. Union density has declined substantially over the last decades whereas on the employers' side density has fallen to a lesser extent as most employers' associations have introduced the option of bargaining-free membership. At the same time, the collective bargaining coverage of companies and employees has been reduced drastically. Nowadays, less than half of employees in Germany are formally covered by collective agreements. Nevertheless, collective agreements are still directly or indirectly relevant for three out of four employees, and they are an important anchor for wage setting in the entire economy. The erosion of (multi-employer) bargaining coverage has manifold reasons and has been associated with an increased heterogeneity in wage setting over the last decades. The ongoing falls in both bargaining coverage and union density have prompted a controversial discussion of how to stabilise the system of industrial relations in Germany.

Keywords: bargaining coverage; collective bargaining; employers' association; trade union; Germany (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J51 J52 J53 J58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2025-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Published - published in: Journal for Labour Market Research, 2025, 59, 7(2025)

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp17615.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Unions and employers’ associations in Germany: a survey of their membership, density and bargaining coverage (2025)
Working Paper: Unions and employers' associations in Germany: A survey of their membership, density and bargaining coverage (2025)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp17615

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().