The transformation of companies into strategic network companies or networks of companies leads to an erosion of companies in the traditional sense. Therefore, net- work companies are a threat to the foundations of the Works Constitution Act, which was not conceptualised for network structures of companies. According to Kotthoff (1995: 443) such network structures contribute to an erosion of the so-called “para- digm of the establishment” as a pillar of the German works constitution. This para- digm consists of the guiding principle of establishments as hierarchically structured communities of production combined with a unity of management and operation. The described institutional configuration of works councils is embedded in this community of production. The latter also builds a platform for the social exchange between man- agement and works councils. The foundations of social exchange, i.e. reciprocal in- formation and communication between in-company social partners and a stable rela- tionship as basis for mutual trust and reliability, are questioned by the structure of network companies. The satellite-establishments of network companies are often sub- or sub-sub-companies. This means that the management of such satellites is only provided with fewer competences in strategic decision-making. In this case top- managers of subsidiaries are not anymore the relevant counterpart to works councils because significant strategic decisions are made at higher levels, as e.g. at the hold- ing level of network companies, to which works council do not have any access to. Because of the very limited range of strategic decision-making at the level of subsidi- ary-managers the social exchange between management and works councils erodes. Works councils are left behind without any direct counterpart on the management side. A prerequisite of social exchange at the establishment level consists in manag- ers equipped with relevant competences of decision-making (cf. Dörre 1999: 200; Kotthoff 1995: 443).
This problem is enhanced in multinational network companies with different centres of decision-making located in several countries. In multinationals or large network companies social exchange between works councils and management at the estab- lishment or company level is furthermore questioned by the emergence of a new so- cial type of top-managers. Their orientation of action is marked by flexibility and their determination to attain economic goals in a variety of companies (ibid.). Flexibility becomes a key feature for promotion and career options; furthermore, it is a test of one’s proof of worth (cf. Sennett 1998). Flexibility requires the change of top- management positions. Thereby, it contradicts to continuity as the basis of social ex- change between management and works councils. If flexibility replaces continuity on the managers’ side, they will hardly develop a social affiliation and responsibility to- wards a certain company or establishment. In case of management changes works councils face difficulties in preserving the social integrative community of production (Kotthoff 1995: 443-444). Social exchange is a crucial social resource for trust-related alliances of modernisation at the establishment level (Dörre 1999: 199). If it erodes, prospects of a social integrative modernisation of firms will fail.
Processes of transformation continue also in network companies. In many cases they are linked with redundancies, selling and buying of companies or subsidiaries, clo- sures of inefficient satellite-companies or plants. Moreover, processes of outsourcing open up opportunities to change sectoral areas of collective bargaining. Therefore, the outsourcing of in-company units as subsidiaries is often linked with working conditions being altered. Outsourced subsidiaries which belong to a sectoral area of collective bargaining different to the parent company may create new demands for employees, as e.g. comparatively lower wages or longer working hours and
ployees, as e.g. comparatively lower wages or longer working hours and enhanced insecurity of employment perspectives. It also leads to a social disintegra- tion on the side of employees: Splitting up entire workforces in several workforces of different subsidiaries weakens the spatial as well as the social cohesion among em- ployees (Wassermann 2002: 95). Moreover, this split up of entire workforces may walk along with a fragmentation of former larger works councils to several minor works councils each of them representing the workforce of a certain subsidiary. This tendency confronts works councils with higher or new demands in co-ordinating themselves on a level superior to a single establishment, subsidiary or company. In order to eschew that the interests of employees and works councils of different sub- sidiaries or companies are played off against each other by co-ordinated manage- ment activities at the network level, works councils are going to found networks on their own. Networking among different works councils at a holding level requires spe- cific qualifications and competences to co-operate effectively in network companies. The new challenges to works councils in network companies cannot be met with es- tablished structures of works councils on a corporate level, because network compa- nies embrace a larger spectre of branches and markets. Therefore, works councils co-operating in networks superior to the subsidiary or establishment level have also to direct their attention more closely to these different branches, markets and diverse groups of customers (ibid.). Such informal forms of networking among works councils within network companies lack a legal basis for co-determination in the works consti- tution act of 1972. This lack is not astonishing, because at the beginning of the 1970ies nowadays network companies were unknown to legislators.