ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces three key structures of German Employers’ Associations (EAs): The separation between the product and labour market related interests of business into different associations, the high degree of autonomy of affiliates vis-à-vis their peak confederation and the insulation of companies’ commercial interests from interest representation at the associational level. While these basic structures have remained stable for a long time, we observe major changes in the area of EAs’ collective bargaining function. With the introduction of a new form of bargaining-free membership, we find a substantial weakening of collective bargaining within a majority of German EAs. By consciously changing rules of membership employers, it is argued, they set in motion a process of institutional change which substantially alters one of the very key functions which historically has helped to constitute German EAs in the first place.
