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.
BenassiChiaraDorigattiLisa. 2015. Straight to the core: The IG Metall campaign towards agency workers. British Journal of Industrial Relations53(3): 533–55.
2.
BenassiChiaraDoellgastVirginiaSarmiento-MirwaldtKatja. 2016. Institutions and inequality in liberalizing markets: Explaining different trajectories of institutional change in social Europe. Politics & Society44(1): 117–42.
3.
BergPeterAppelbaumEileenBaileyTomKallebergArne. 2004. Contesting time: International comparisons of employee control of working time. Industrial and Labor Relations Review57(3): 331–49.
4.
BergPeterBoschGerhardCharestJean. 2014. Working-time configurations: A framework for analyzing diversity across countries. ILR Review67(3): 805–37.
5.
ChungHeejungTijdensKea. 2013. Working time flexibility components and working time regimes in Europe: Using company-level data across 21 countries. International Journal of Human Resource Management24(7): 1418–34.
6.
DoellgastVirginia. 2012. Disintegrating Democracy at Work: Labor Unions and the Future of Good Jobs in the Service Economy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press/ILR Press.
7.
DoellgastVirginiaSarmiento-MirwaldtKatjaBenassiChiara. 2016. Contesting firm boundaries: Institutions, cost structures, and the politics of externalization. ILR Review69(3): 551–78.
8.
EdwardsPaul. 2006. Power and ideology in the workplace: Going beyond even the second version of the three-dimensional view. Work, Employment and Society20(3): 571–81.
9.
GreerIanHauptmeierMarco. 2016. Management whipsawing: The staging of labor competition under globalization. ILR Review69(1): 29–52.
10.
IbsenChristian Lyhne. 2011. Strained compromises? Danish flexicurity during crisis. Nordic Journal of Working Life Studies1(1): 45–65.
11.
IbsenChristian LyhneMailandMikkel. 2011. Striking a balance? Flexibility and security in collective bargaining. Economic and Industrial Democracy32(2): 161–80.
12.
IlsøeAnna. 2012a. Safety nets or straitjackets? Regulating working time in the Danish, German and American metal industries. European Journal of Industrial Relations18(1): 37–51.
13.
IlsøeAnna. 2012b. Signs of segmentation? A flexicurity perspective on decentralized collective bargaining in Denmark. Economic and Industrial Democracy33(2): 245–65.
14.
KelliherClareAndersonDeirdre. 2010. Doing more with less? Flexible working practices and the intensification of work. Human Relations63(1): 83–106.
15.
KellyErin L.MoenPhyllis. 2007. Rethinking the clockwork of work: Why schedule control may pay off at work and at home. Advances in Developing Human Resources9(4): 487–506.
16.
KellyErin L.MoenPhyllisTranbyEric. 2011. Changing workplaces to reduce work-family conflict: Schedule control in a white-collar organization. American Sociological Review76(2): 265–90.
17.
KerkhofsMarcelChungHeejungEsterPeter. 2008. Working time flexibility across Europe: A typology using firm-level data. Industrial Relations Journal39(6): 569–85.
18.
KeuneMaarten. 2013. Trade union responses to precarious work in seven European countries. International Journal of Labor Research5(1): 59–78.
19.
KokRobertLigthartPaul. 2014. Differentiating major and incremental new product development: The effects of functional and numerical workforce flexibility. Journal of Product Innovation Management31.S1: 30-42.
20.
KossekEllen ErnstLambertSusan J.2005. Work and Life Integration: Organizational, Cultural, and Individual Perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
21.
LambertSusanHaley-LockAnnaHenlyJulia R.2012. Schedule flexibility in hourly jobs: Unanticipated consequences and promising directions. Community, Work & Family15(3): 293–315.
22.
LukesSteven. 2004. Power: A Radical View. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
23.
LynessKaren S.GornickJanet C.StonePamelaGrottoAngela R.2012. It’s all about control: Worker control over schedule and hours in cross-national context. American Sociological Review77(6): 1023–49.
24.
MarginsonPaulGalettoManuela. 2016. Engaging with flexibility and security: Rediscovering the role of collective bargaining. Economic and Industrial Democracy37(1): 95–117.
25.
McIlroyRachaelMarginsonPaulRegaliaIda. 2004. Regulating external and internal forms of flexibility at local level: Five European regions compared. International Journal of Human Resource Management15(2): 295–313.
26.
PlantengaJannekeRemeryChantal. 2010. Flexible Working Time Arrangements and Gender Equality: A Comparative Review of 30 European Countries. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
27.
PulignanoValeriaKeuneMaarten. 2014. Understanding varieties of flexibility and security in multinationals: Product markets, institutions variation and local bargaining. European Journal of Industrial Relations21(1): 5–21.
28.
PulignanoValeriaSignorettiAndrea. 2016. Union strategies, national institutions and the use of temporary labour in Italian and US plants. British Journal of Industrial Relations54(3): 574–96.
29.
PulignanoValeriaDoerflingerNadjaFranceschiFabio De. 2016. Flexibility and security within European labor markets: The role of local bargaining and the “trade-offs” within multinationals’ subsidiaries in Belgium, Britain, and Germany. ILR Review69(3): 605–30.
30.
RaessDamianBurgoonBrian. 2006. The dogs that sometimes bark: Globalization and works council bargaining in Germany. European Journal of Industrial Relations12(3) 287–309.
31.
ReynoldsJeremy. 2004. When too much is not enough: Actual and preferred work hours in the United States and abroad. Sociological Forum19(1): 89–120.
32.
RuberyJillWardKevinGrimshawDamianBeynonHuw. 2005. Working time, industrial relations and the employment relationship. Time & Society14(1): 89–111.
33.
SchröderLothar. 2007. Der Tarifkonflikt bei der Deutschen Telekom AG. WSI Mitteilungen9: 515–18.
34.
SchulteLisa. 2016. Employment systems and marketisation in the wind energy sector in the UK, Germany, and Denmark. MPhil/PhD thesis. London: University of Greenwich.
35.
SeifertHartmut. 2003. Paradigm shift in working time policy through working time accounts—from standard working hours to controlled flexibility. Journal of Human Resource Costing and Accounting7(3): 27–37.
36.
SørensenOle HenningWeinkopfClaudia. 2009. Pay and working conditions in finance and utility call centres in Denmark and Germany. European Journal of Industrial Relations15(4): 395–416.
37.
WilthagenTonTrosFrank. 2004. The concept of ‘flexicurity’: A new approach to regulating employment and labour markets. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research10(2): 166–86.
