Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

with a health management professor as mediator and consultant. The purpose was to
redirect the focus from analysis of absenteeism rates to preventive measures.
Further training and know-how transfer provokes clashes between the two parties in
a smaller number of firms than is the case with health management. Again, those clashes
ground on cost saving issues. E.g., in one firm the exemption of experienced workers in
pre-retirement age for a few weeks from regular work so that they can qualify younger
workers is rejected on grounds of temporary unproductivity. In some firms, works councils
play a role in stimulating training and preserving training investments (e.g. in case of
redundancies, so that outplaced or dismissed workers can quicker find a job more quickly),
or pushing for the introduction of customised training (e.g. different levels of IT courses).
There is less disagreement between the two parties over issues of personnel reductions
and early retirement. Backes-Gellner et al. (1997: 334) arrived at the conclusion that there
is a “seemingly high degree of consensus between management and workers´
representatives, even in the case of dismissals”, and Ebbinghaus (2003: 47) stated that “one
actor alone is not able to shape early exit policy successfully unless there is one other main
actor that shares similar interests”. Unions “will foster early exit from work when their
leaders deem that policies are in the interests of their members”, and the interests of
organised labour and employers is to “control and regulate early exit from work
independently, and they have an interest in externalizing the costs thereof to the public”
(ibid: 47-48). Moreover, according to Mares (2001: 58-59), “[f]irms would like to control
the “who, when and how” of early exit, retaining those with needed skills and high
productivity, while shedding those with redundant skills and low productivity”.
Following those lines of argument, the management and employee representatives
collude in the use of public funds for the early release of older workers with wage
compensation. While employers strive to reduce the head count and to ensure the support of
workers for the reciprocity norm (Kohli et al. 1983: 29), the works councils have an interest
in securing their position by rewarding their constituency and releasing it from work
burdens.
In my firm case studies, the employee representatives generally supported early
retirement and firm-level pre-retirement schemes on grounds that they offered the option of
early exit for persons with impaired health and those suffering from adverse working
154