Paradoxes of Internationalization: British and German Trade Unions at Ford and General Motors, 1967–2000 by Thomas Fetzer (review)

This is a fascinating study of the transition in British and German unions as they responded to the increased competition for investment in the European automobile industry. Starting in the late 1960s, Ford and then General Motors moved from a corporate organization with limited interaction between their British and German divisions to a European-wide organization. While there was always competition for investment and market share between the divisions, this competition was dramatically increased as both companies rationalized production on a European basis. The shift to a single European market in the late 1980s provided even greater flexibility in investment decisions and further heightened the competition for investment. The parallels to changes in Canada and the United States following the adoption of the Auto Pact in 1967 and nafta in 1994 make this volume of particular interest to Canadian readers.

Fetzer organizes his analysis around three key questions. First, how did this shift to European-wide operations influence national allegiances of British and German unions? Here he finds that, rather than weakening nationalism, unions became more nationalistic as British unions and German unions worked with the companies to maximize employment in their jurisdiction.

Secondly, how did this transition affect the domestic practices of unions in Germany and Britain? Prior to the shift to pan-European operations, British and German unions operated in distinctly different institutional structures and adopted different strategies to represent their members. Fetzer argues that in some areas, the two unions converged as each increased their monitoring of corporate strategies related to capital allocation. However, there were also forces of diversity at work, driven mainly by the different experiences of British and German workers as the companies rationalized European production. In particular, German unions were able to take a different approach to bargaining as they were mainly winners in this contest for investment, while British unions were forced to adopt strategies reflecting their weaker competitive position and continuing loss of employment. At first, British unions continued to promote strategies such as restrictions on imports and other strategies intended to protect more of the domestic market for vehicles for British producers. The continuing failure to attract investment to Britain led eventually to many of the British trade union groups accepting more of a partnership approach to management and pushed them in the direction of German industrial relations.

Finally, Fetzer asks if the new structures led to greater co-operation between German and British unions. In the competition for investment, Fetzer finds both moments of co-operation and moments of increased conflict. He argues that, in the first instance, the increased competition actually led to limited co-operation as British unions looked for corporate information from that their German counterparts had access to as a result of their unique industrial relations arrangement with German companies. German unions looked to co-operate with British unions to limit periods of unemployment in Germany that might be caused by strikes in British plants supplying German assemblers. It is important not to over-state the degree of co-operation. Each was pursuing strategies that they viewed as serving the interests of their members rather than the interests of a European working class. Solidarity during conflicts was mostly limited to letters of support. It is argued that the failure to develop more robust forms of co-operation reflects the sense that the competition for investment at first did not lead to a sense of shared risk or common threat to European workers.

At the same time, differences in the industrial relations structures in the two countries became a point of friction. To British workers facing demands for concessions and job loss, the more accommodating German industrial relations structure was viewed as a lack of militancy. German unions experiencing the strike activity in Britain as periods of lay-offs due to shortages, looked on in puzzlement at the multi-union British organization.

Of interest here...