The Performance Effects of Unions. Codetermination, and Employee Involvement: Comparing the United States and Germany (With an Addendum on the United Kingdom)

Drawing on evidence from the United States and Germany, this paper offers a survey of the effects of worker representation (in unions and works councils) and innovative work practices on firm performance. The interaction between worker representation and high performance work practices provides a practical means of peering inside the black box of the collective voice model, even if there is as yet no well-determined hierarchy for productivity performance and certainly no blue-print for the future of unions. An addendum sketches the British evidence.