Volume 65, Issue 3 - ZSR Special Issue: Companies and Social Policy

The paper uses a qualitative comparative case study design to examine across (and within) sectoral variation in occupational welfare outcomes (i.e. flexible working hours, occupational pensions and health and sickness benefits, fringe benefits complementing wages) for different groups of workers in food and chemical manufacturing in Germany and Belgium. Findings indicate that common national challenges can yield different occupational welfare outcomes across (and within) different sectors, which in turn affect workforce segmentation. The integration between local and sector-level power dynamics explains how, and the extent to which, negotiation on occupational welfare can entail segmentation.

Over the last decade, in most Western countries, welfare states have faced increasing challenges due to several socioeconomic and cultural transformations. The economic crisis and austerity measures adopted in the aftermath of these challenges have increased the number of vulnerable people. Against this backdrop, this article aims to shed light on the development of company-based welfare in Italy by focusing specifically on the gap between large and small-medium enterprises and on emerging solutions addressed to fill this gap through the constitution of locally rooted, multi-actor networks. How do they originate? What are their main features? What contribution can they make to defusing the dualization between large, medium and small companies and workers? After reviewing these research questions, a description of the development of company-based welfare in Italy is provided in the first part of the article. We then describe and compare four local welfare networks, including small and medium enterprises, by looking at both their genetic and constitutive elements and their outputs.

In den letzten Jahren ist in Deutschland eine Zunahme betrieblicher Sozialleistungen erkennbar. Neben der betrieblichen Alterssicherung werden u.a. soziale Dienstleistungen angeboten, die eine Erwerbstätigkeit bei Care Verpflichtungen ermöglichen. Der Aufsatz geht der Frage nach, ob und inwiefern sich durch das Engagement der Unternehmen das wohlfahrtsstaatliche Regime verändert und welche Auswirkungen auf vulnerable Gruppen erkennbar sind. Hierfür werden die Akteurkonstellationen dargestellt und anhand einer Fallstudie vertiefend untersucht. Als Ergebnis bleibt festzuhalten, dass betriebliche Sozialpolitik dazu führen kann, dass sich soziale Ungleich-heiten zwischen Arbeitsmarkt-Insidern und -Outsidern verschärfen, insbe-sondere wenn staatliche Leistungen auf die betriebliche Ebene verlagert werden. Davon sind nicht nur die Arbeitsmarkt-Outsider selbst, sondern auch deren Kinder betroffen. Die Ausweitung betrieblicher Sozialpolitik trägt insofern zur Erosion des wohlfahrtskorporatistischen Systems bei.

Staatliche Sozialleistungen können, je nach Gestaltung des Leistungszugangs, Arbeitsanreize schwächen oder stärken. Eine Schwächung ergibt sich, wenn Leistungsbezug als Alternative zu Erwerbstätigkeit in Frage kommt; eine Stärkung, wenn Leistungen an Verpflichtungen zur Arbeitssuche und Arbeitsaufnahme gekoppelt sind. Aus diesen Gründen ist die Gestaltung von Arbeitsanreizen durch Sozialpolitik für Arbeitgeber relevant. Dieser Beitrag untersucht durch historische Fallstudien von sechs sozialpolitischen Reformen, welche Rolle die Spitzenverbände der Arbeitgeber Arbeitsanreizen in der Sozialpolitik beimaßen sowie wie sich diese Einschätzungen im Zeitverlauf veränderten. Der Beitrag zeigt, dass die Verbände eine Reduktion des Arbeitskräfteangebots durch Sozialpolitik, je nach Arbeitsmarktlage, entweder negativ oder positiv bewerteten. Dort, wo die Verbände eine Schwächung von Arbeitsanreizen als problematisch wahrnahmen, variierte die Intensität dieser Befürchtungen mit der Arbeitsmarktnähe des jeweiligen Programms.

Do German employers in metal and electrical (M+E) sector still want to support core institutions of a coordinated market economy, and are capable of doing so? Based on evidence collected in a series of expert interviews conducted in 2017 and 2018 with employers’ associations, we argue that social partnership, collective bargaining, and strategic coordination via organizations are still part of the preferred modus operandi of these employers. Moreover, we argue that new forms of associational membership that enable firm-based, yet often collective, solutions, which have stabilized rather than eroded the organizational capacity of employers’ associations. As such, we provide supportive evidence for several core premises associated with the Varieties of Capitalism approach. Yet we also identify trends toward more flexibilization, decentralization, and systemic volatility in this system, as many small and medium-sized enterprises, especially in East Germany, remain without any associational membership.

This article looks at the role of private companies involved in organizing so-called live-in care arrangements between two EU member states, Germany and Poland. Due to gaps in the public long-term care system, employing livein migrant care workers in private households has become a widespread individualized solution to rising long-term care needs in Germany. Since eastern EU enlargement, private brokerage agencies placing Polish live-in migrant care workers in German households have grown considerably. Building on approaches conceptualizing the role of intermediaries in formalizing domestic work, we aim to provide a more fine-grained typology of private brokerage agencies, taking into account not only the legal environment and structural features of these private enterprises, but also their strategic positioning under conditions of high legal uncertainty in the EU multi-level governance system. By analyzing corporate as well as political strategies of these intermediaries, we distinguish three different agency types we call pioneers, minimum effort players and followers.