German Works Councils under Pressure - Institutional Learning as a Pathway to Enhance their Capacities of Action

This paper deals with institutional challenges German works councils face currently. These challenges consist of structural economic change from industrial to service sectors accompanied by an extension of ‘co-determination-free-zones’, an enhanced labour force diversity beyond the image of the male blue collar worker as the ‘normal employee’ works councils represent, the transformation of companies into network companies splitting up established works councils, co-management in times of com-petitive restructuring of firms and the emergence of new postfordistic production models with ambivalent impacts on working conditions....