ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on new rationalization strategies in industry and their effects on the representation of employee interests on the shop-floor level in the Federal Republic of Germany. The three points that are dealt with are: which direction rationalization strategies will take; what opportunities employee representatives will have in influencing the design of technology and work organization; the problems faced by employee representatives in the FRG. Under present conditions of competition on sales markets and the potential presented by information technology, rationalization is evidently taking new direction, one which we have termed 'systemic rationalization'. The forms of work readily portray a type of rationalization which is technology-centred and geared toward central control which only builds up skilled and engaged personnel in certain key positions. Systemic rationalization forms are directed toward the entire context of the manufacturing process, from material and particularly the parts supply, all the way through to distribution of the finished product.
