DefendingthecoreAnanalysisoftradeunionsbehaviourtowardsoutsourcingEvidencefromtheGermanchemicalandmetalsector.docVIP

Defending the core? An analysis of trade unions behaviour towards outsourcing Evidence from the German chemical and metal sector Lisa Dorigatti - Draft: please do not cite or circulate without permission of the author. Comments welcome! - 1. INTRODUCTION Since the Nineties there has been a general trend in corporate restructuring towards outsourcing and “concentration on core activities”. Under the pressure of increasing international competition, shifting consumer preferences, and growing uncertainties on the goods and capital markets, firms have adopted a leaner organisation and outsourced diverse business functions to external organisations. How these new inter-organisational relations impact on working condition, industrial relations structures and trade union power has been subject to increasing scrutiny (Flecker et al. 2008, Marchington et al. 2005). It has been argued that outsourcing impacts working conditions and the stability of the industrial relations structures since it usually moves jobs from better organised firms and sectors, to more vulnerable ones, where trade union organisation is low and collective agreements are weaker or unexistent (Doellgast and Greer 2007: 56). Thus, the re-organisation of company’s structures is producing increasing disparities among different groups of workers and a worsening of working conditions for employees at lower levels of the value chain (Flecker 2009). More ambiguous has been the question of how these processes have impacted on workers located in core sectors and firms (Flecker 2009). Indeed, outsourcing has been seen both as a threat for their working conditions, because it may increase competition with an cheaper labour supply, but it has also been argued to protect them, by sheltering their jobs from market fluctuations and cost-cutting pressures. This two opposite views have been mirrored also in the literature which analyses how trade unions behave under these circumstances. Pointing to the ambiguity of v