ABSTRACT
This chapter compares the responses in west and east Germany in terms of the three categories of commitment specified above: collective identities, collective instrumentality and collective participation. In order to control for a possible bias caused by the large share of works councillors and union officials in the west German sample, the analysis was restricted to rank-and-file members: 312 members in the east and 995 in the west. One reason for the perceptions of decreasing solidarity could be that the solidarity in the east is under more pressure. Them-and-us feelings were strong in both groups and indicate a collective approach to management–workforce relations. Today, this is changing. The division between management and workforce becomes more evident. In other words, workers were supportive of their new institutions rather than being individualistic (and non-supportive). This challenges the popular assumption in some of the literature that union members in the east are strongly individualistic, instrumental and passive towards collective interest representation.
