Wages and justness : an analysis of the scenarios of wage policy of occupational unions

Abstract

"In recent years, various occupational unions in Germany have achieved independence from the established industry-wide unions in tariff policy. In negotiations on tariffs, they demand comparatively high wage increases for individual groups of occupations and, in doing so, attempt to legitimise this exclusive action to the public by way of reasonable arguments. The current paper examines, against the background of this discourse on social justness, under which circumstances employees judge the higher wage rises of specific occupational groups represented by occupational unions to be just. Here, with the help of vignette techniques, judgements on whether something is just or not are raised to the level of hypothetical scenarios. The results showed that the persons asked tended to see exclusive wage increases as just when it was described in the scenarios that the occupational union emphasised the previous performance of the occupational group that was to profit as well as the current increasing demands that the work was putting on them. But employees also accepted a higher wage if this was intended to compensate for lower esteem on the part of the employer. On the other hand, the feeling of unjustness increased in relation to the size of the wage increases. In addition, information policy and the extent to which the interests of the other employees were taken into account influenced judgements regarding justness." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku)

Cite article

Dütsch, M., Gückelhorn, C., Stephan, G. & Struck, O. (2014): Arbeitsentgelte und Gerechtigkeit. Eine Szenarienanalyse zur Lohnpolitik von Berufsgewerkschaften. (Universität Bamberg, Professur für Arbeitswissenschaft. Arbeitspapier 13), Bamberg, 27 p.