Remuneration in the German Broadcasting Sector: The Employers' Perspective

Abstract

Th is article focuses on the managerial perspective in wage formation. Th e study concentrates on two questions: 1) Why do employers want more autonomy at the expense of collective agreements? 2) What do employers gain from a more or less autonomous system of remuneration? Aft er a brief description of the wage formation framework, in particular the framework within the broadcasting sector, I will present the results of interviews with the management of private and public broadcasting stations. In matters of wage formation the study illustrates a clear division between companies with collective agreements and companies without collective agreements. All the managers interviewed for this article express an increasing need for autonomy, but some are convinced that autonomy can be achieved within the framework of collective agreements. Other companies demand absolute autonomy for the management and totally reject being bound by collective bargaining. Most of the companies without collective agreements refuse to undergo or accept the results of collective bargaining, citing that * Th is article is based on the research project: "Employers' Need for Autonomy and the Re-Regulation of Labor Law: Th e Example of Remuneration", sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Th e research project has been carried out under the direction of Th omas Blanke at the Department of Law at Oldenburg University. Th e author wishes to thank numerous people for their helpful comments on the manuscript: the reviewers, the editors, the commentators, the colleagues of the research group Grenzen der Entgrenzung von Arbeit as well as the chair of Labor Law at Oldenburg University, and -last but not least -Martin Seeleib-Kaiser. Christine Sell, Melanie Brüngel, Susanne Freytag, and Gabriella Faerber were indispensable for the English translation.CS 33,1-2_f10_152-179.indd 153 CS 33,1-2_f10_152-179.indd 153