Negotiating Flexibility: External Contracting and Working Time Control in German and Danish Telecommunications Firms
通过比较德国和丹麦两家电信公司的呼叫中心和技术人员工作场所，研究不同参与权如何影响员工对工作时间的控制，发现德国更强的共同决策权有助于员工在新灵活工时模式中重建控制。
This study examines how different participation rights and structures affect employee control over working time. The analysis is based on a comparison of matched call center and technician workplaces in two major telecommunications firms in Germany and Denmark. It draws on data from semi-structured interviews with managers, supervisors, and employee representatives between 2010 and 2016. Unions and works councils in both firms agreed to a series of concessions on working time policies in the early 2010s in exchange for agreements to halt or reverse outsourcing. The authors use Lukes’ concepts of decision-making and agenda-setting power to explain these common trends, as well as later divergence in outcomes. Germany’s stronger formal co-determination rights over working time proved a critical power resource for employee representatives as they sought to re-establish employee control in new, more flexible working time models.