EU RO P E A N T R A DE U N I O N D I A LOGU E TRADE UNIONS AND RIGHT-WING POPULISM IN EUROPE Country Study Germany Sophie Bose January 2023 FRAMEWORK THE SYSTEM OF LABOUR RELATIONS Labour relations in the Federal Republic of Germa­ny are characterised by a dual system, with works councils acting as bodies representing the interests of employees at the company level and trade unions taking over supra-company representation of inter­ests, collective bargaining with companies and em­ployers’ associations, and participating in a social or“conflict” partnership(Müller-Jentsch 2017: 23). Works councils are elected by all employees,“de­signed for consensus and cooperation, and commit­ted to company harmony” (Müller-Jentsch 2014: 517). Their legal foundation, the Works Constitution, provides for a tiered system of rights, including the right to co-determination, participation, and infor­mation. For example, works councils have the right to co-determination in matters related to personnel and workplace and workflow design. However, they only have the right to information when it comes to economic matters(Müller-Jentsch 2014: 519f.). In the public sector, personnel councils have similar rights, though grounded in a different legal founda­tion. In the context of policies on collective bargaining, trade unions ideally negotiate sector-wide agree­ments. In recent years, however, the power of the sector-based collective bargaining system has erod­ed, in particular, due to the reduced organisation of employers’ associations. Thus, the amount of people engaged in workplaces without collective agree­ments has grown, and company-specific‘in-house’ collective agreements have risen in importance(Ell ­guth/Kohaut 2022). The rising prevalence of these ‘in-house’ agreements is also described as the“cor ­poratisation of labour relations”. The system of in ­dustrial relations in Germany has been in a state of upheaval since the 1990s due to globalisation, stag ­nating economic growth, and the far-reaching trans­formation of capitalism. This has led to a weakening of trade union resources and co-determination in the workplace(Dörre et al. 2017: 220–224). Meanwhile, with the help of political programs such as the Agen­da 2010, the social security net, industrial relations, and previous market-limiting institutions were pres­sured to compete and change throughout the coun­try. Consequently, the German arrangement, which consists of labour law, collective bargaining autono­my, co-determination, and a social safety net, has withered. Meanwhile the principle of competition has returned to all possible sectors and areas of life; moreover, company management systems and inter­nal structures have been financialised and re-orient ­ed toward capital markets(Dörre et al. 2017: 220– 224). Despite the formal separation between the works councils and the trade unions, in practice, the two are closely linked. For example, the vast majority of 1