Lots and lots of change has been happening since the economic crisis hit East Asia in the 1990's. To answer the first question on our Tute schedule, it's the economic crisis that moved the politics to move the culture. A bit of a chain reaction was started as 'The East Asian Model of Capitalism' was seen more as a weakness than a strength. The era of government intervention and long term relationships instead of markets was slowly coming to a halt. There has been some debate regarding whether or not an alignment closer to the Western economic structure would benefit this part of the world, however there are as yet no conclusive remarks and Japan and Korea seek for an alternate.
Japan's ER model for a long time differentiated itself from the west by its characteristic lifetime employment stability and seniority based wage structures. Korea's structure is also very similar to this, however employment stability was much weaker than Japan's. The major issues that have been pressuring Japan to change their ER system is the fact that seniority based pay is no longer valid in the economy shift in the 90's. The growing age of the workforce, the baby boomers, are increasing labor costs, and many flagship organisations were suffering with too large workforces.
Korean firms, on the other hand, have been found to be reluctant to make long term commitments to its employees. This fact has actually changed since the economic downturn, and now more companies are unwilling or unable to let employees go. This has resulted in decreased turnover for many large organisations, which is being regarded as a sign of development in Korea's labor relations. Seniority based pay was now slowly destroying the glass ceiling that existed for blue collar workers around the 1980's and earlier.
From what I could understand, only the major changes in the global environment had a small effect on East Asian policies. Generally, it seems as if Japan and Korea have been in some sort of economic bubble, having maintained their cultural ideals in spite of the ER changes.
http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.uwa.edu.au/stable/pdfplus/10.1525/as.2006.46.3.457.pdf?acceptTC=true&jpdConfirm=true
Thursday, 18 September 2014
Thursday, 4 September 2014
The German employment relations model- in transition or decline?
I'm sick. I don't like being sick. Ugh.
But you know what else makes me sick?
The idea that the German ER model is in decline! (Not really but you know)
I have various, various sources saying that it's currently in transition - the recent pressures from Anglo-Saxon models from the U.S. will either largely influence the current model, or it will morph into a 'more flexible' model of the current one.
Let it be noted, though, that the majority of employers in Germany actually prefer a model closer to the one pre-existing. I wonder why!
Funnily enough though, most firms haven't yet taken advantage of the flexibility the new framework has to offer. The original model is usually what is referred to post WWII, describing the collaborative efforts used between Unions and Work Councils to fuel the IR side of things, resulting in a very Consensus-based model.
The main reasons pushing Germany to reform their current IR model rests with the power that the German bank has in shaping the industrial sector, along with the record high unemployment levels at 12.6%! (Highest since WWII!!).
Honestly, the other positive argument towards Germany's ER model being great is how jealous all the other countries are of it, as they survived a bunch of famous scandals done by famous companies (I've never heard of them), along with the financial crisis of '07-'10. It survived so well in fact, that many other nations in EU have actually adopted the same or similar economic model and it has, interestingly, flourished.
So definitely, definitely the answer is the German ER model is in transition!
http://www.ribm.mmu.ac.uk/wps/papers/00-07.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_model
http://asr.sagepub.com/content/74/1/1.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc
But you know what else makes me sick?
The idea that the German ER model is in decline! (Not really but you know)
I have various, various sources saying that it's currently in transition - the recent pressures from Anglo-Saxon models from the U.S. will either largely influence the current model, or it will morph into a 'more flexible' model of the current one.
Let it be noted, though, that the majority of employers in Germany actually prefer a model closer to the one pre-existing. I wonder why!
Funnily enough though, most firms haven't yet taken advantage of the flexibility the new framework has to offer. The original model is usually what is referred to post WWII, describing the collaborative efforts used between Unions and Work Councils to fuel the IR side of things, resulting in a very Consensus-based model.
The main reasons pushing Germany to reform their current IR model rests with the power that the German bank has in shaping the industrial sector, along with the record high unemployment levels at 12.6%! (Highest since WWII!!).
Honestly, the other positive argument towards Germany's ER model being great is how jealous all the other countries are of it, as they survived a bunch of famous scandals done by famous companies (I've never heard of them), along with the financial crisis of '07-'10. It survived so well in fact, that many other nations in EU have actually adopted the same or similar economic model and it has, interestingly, flourished.
So definitely, definitely the answer is the German ER model is in transition!
http://www.ribm.mmu.ac.uk/wps/papers/00-07.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_model
http://asr.sagepub.com/content/74/1/1.short?rss=1&ssource=mfc
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