EMPLOYABILITY AND SECURITY IN A FLEXIBLE GLOBAL LABOUR MARKET Trade union responses to new patterns of employment and management Trade unions must grasp opportunities Do any common employment and management trends exist in both Britain and Germany? Or are trends limited to just one of these countries? Delegates discussed these and other questions linked to new patterns of employment and management. Gero Maass of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation asked whether the trade union movement wants to co-operate with the new pay models, such as performance related pay, that are developing. And, if the answer is yes, how can control of these new models be shifted towards unions and away from management? Delegates agreed that there was a gap between the theory and the implementation of many the‘new’ management techniques designed to make wage and work conditions more equitable. One German participant wanted to know if countrywide agreements were still important to the unions, particularly in Britain. Has management has taken the initiative and has the influence of trade unions declined? The situation in Germany is also changing. Collective agreements used to apply to the vast majority of employees. Now they are less important in the five new states(former East Germany) but are still used extensively in the western part of the country. At the same time, unions are asking whether there should be countrywide agreements or whether agreements relating to a particular sector or region are preferable.‘It is a question of decentralisation, devolution and company-specific arrangements,’ commented one German participant.‘The unions want to maintain countrywide deals, but also want to open up the possibility of individual agreements. Perhaps Germany is better positioned than Britain to pursue this strategy as we have work councils and co-determination to support us’ Other participants pointed out that the trend is to work with management, usually through the works council, to reach agreements.‘We need to be more flexible,’ said one delegate.‘We see management putting a sum of money on the table, but saying that it will decide how that sum is distributed. As unions should we merely negotiate the total sum or should we also fight for involvement in the distribution of pay settlements? We should also be trying to improve wage levels across the pay spectrum.’ Are collective agreements a thing of the past? Simon Dubbins, European adviser to the GPMU, pointed out that his union was one of the few still able to negotiate collective agreements.‘In general such agreements do not exist in Britain, except in the public sector. One of the reasons may be that we don’t have works councils. The European co-determination directive gives us the opportunity to build a 20 © Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society