Works councils and workplace health promotion in Germany

Uwe Jirjahn, Jens Mohrenweiser and Stephen Smith

Economic and Industrial Democracy, 2022, vol. 43, issue 3, 1059-1094

Abstract: From a theoretical viewpoint, there can be market failures and organizational failures resulting in an underprovision of occupational health and safety. Works councils may help mitigate these failures. Using establishment data from Germany, the empirical analysis in this article confirms that the incidence of a works council is significantly associated with an increased likelihood that the establishment provides more workplace health promotion than required by law. This result also holds in regressions accounting for the possible endogeneity of works council incidence. Furthermore, analysing potentially moderating factors such as collective bargaining coverage, industry, type of ownership, multi-establishment status and product market competition, the article finds a positive association between works councils and workplace health promotion for the various types of establishments examined. Finally, this study goes beyond the mere incidence of workplace health promotion and shows that works councils are positively associated with a series of different measures of workplace health promotion.

Keywords: Non-union employee representation; occupational health and safety; workplace health promotion; works council (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Related works:
Working Paper: Works Councils and Workplace Health Promotion in Germany (2019)
Working Paper: Works Councils and Workplace Health Promotion in Germany (2019)
Working Paper: Works Councils and Workplace Health Promotion in Germany (2019)
Working Paper: Works Councils and Workplace Health Promotion in Germany (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ecoind:v:43:y:2022:i:3:p:1059-1094

DOI: 10.1177/0143831X20971051

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