Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

each firm would be needed. From the interviews with managers and with chairpersons of
usually the largest trade union in the firm, I did not gain knowledge on the relations with
other trade unions.
This section has shown that the power of trade unions to co-decide on employment
matters in Polish enterprises is reduced to issues of employment protection in case of
personnel reductions. If trade unions have an impact on other matters, it is due to sectoral
affiliation (in the energy sector, trade unions have a traditionally high standing), the public
ownership character of the given establishment (in which trade unions have not yet been
deprived of power), or the established mode of good cooperation between the management
and trade unions in the given firm.
The interests of the actors at firm level could also be best studied on the example of
personnel reductions and early exit. The relations between shop-level trade unions, the
management and the workers took three forms – a general collusion of interests, a collusion
of interests between the employer and trade unions (co-management), and between workers
and their trade unions (enforcing redundancies on the employer in order to let older workers
utilise still available exit pathways).
4.3.10. Conclusions
In this chapter, I will repeat the results of hypothesis testing given in the previous subsections
with the exception of hypothesis 5 which will be repeated and compared between
the two country cases at the end of the comparative chapter 4.4. Afterwards, I will conduct
a typological analysis of the 14 firms in my sample based on presented evidence.
Hypothesis 1 (see section 2.1.) is not supported in the Polish case. Polish firms in my
sample in most cases present a ´no reaction´ pattern. However, one reason for this is the fact
that incentives for trend reversal at establishment level have not been sufficiently
communicated by state actors (back-and-forth policy, contradictory messages) and that
sufficient coercion mechanisms (e.g. the enforcement of the anti-discrimination legislation)
have not set in. Moreover, there are no financial incentives to hire long-term unemployed or
insufficiently educated older workers similar to those in Germany. I would assume that
respective subsidies would be embraced by Polish firms which react sensitively to financial
incentives.
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