Introduction

This book, originally published in 1999, provided the first comparative, in-depth analysis of workplace relations in east and west Germany. The collapse of communism and the ensuing process of reform means that East Germany provides a particularly interesting case, having experienced rapid and radical political and economic transformation, and representing an historically outstanding experiment of the shifting of an entire social system onto a different society.

Focus of the Book

This book examines the success of the institutional transfer of west German labour organisations into east Germany workplaces and addresses central questions such as: Can capitalist labour institutions be imposed on a former communist workforce? What conditions determine the success or failure of these institutions? Can social partnership between capital and labour be learned?