Trade union responses to ageing workforces in the UK and Germany

Citation

(2013), "Trade union responses to ageing workforces in the UK and Germany", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 21 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/hrmid.2013.04421caa.002

Trade union responses to ageing workforces in the UK and Germany

Article Type: Abstracts From: Human Resource Management International Digest, Volume 21, Issue 3

Flynn M., Upchurch M., Muller-Camen M. and Schroder H. Human Relations, January 2013, Vol. 66 No. 1, pp. 45-64, No. of pages: 20

Discusses how ageing workforces are placing conflicting pressures on European trade unions in order to, on the one hand, protect pensions and early retirement routes, and, on the other, promote human resource management (HRM) policies geared towards enabling their older members to extend working life. Uses interviews from German and United Kingdom (UK) trade unions to discuss how unions are both constrained and enabled by pre-existing institutional structures in advocating approaches to age management. Finds that, in Germany, some unions use their strong institutional role to affect public policy and industrial change at national and sectoral levels. UK unions have taken a more defensive approach, focused on protecting pension rights. Reports that the contrasting varieties of capitalism, welfare systems and trade unions’ own orientations are creating different pressures and mechanisms to which unions need to respond. While the German inclusive system is providing unions with mechanisms for negotiating collectively at the national level, UK unions’ activism remains localized. ISSN: 0018-7267 Article type: Research paper Reference: 42AF061 (Permanent URL)

Keywords: Age management, Institutional theory, Older employees, Trade unions