Works Councils as Transition Managers? Transition approaches and experiences of Works Councils in company production networks within Germany

Abstract:

The transition towards digitalisation and electromobility (twin transition) puts adaptive pressures on the automotive industry and profoundly affects and alters industrial relations in Germany. As production sites are being restructured and new capacities are being built, announcements from numerous OEMs and suppliers to cut jobs on a larger scale raise questions about the future of the sector (Lechowski and Weis, 2025). While trade unions and works councils (WCs) used their strength within the highly institutionalised German industrial relations and negotiated employment pacts with automotive companies to prevent job losses (Köncke, 2022), the restructuring of the industry puts the industrial model and its associated industrial relations in question, especially in plants focusing on conventional powertrains. The twin transition confronts locations and workers organisations with fundamental strategic questions regarding innovation, technologies and product policy, which have traditionally not been part of their repertoire. Increasingly organised labour operates on the uncertain ground of management decisions and product policy.
Scholars have observed different strategies by trade unions and works councils in the context of the twin transition. After initial debates on the union position on electromobility, from 2019 onwards unions opted for a resolute pro- and even electromobility-only stance (Blöcker, 2022). Only recently, in reaction to slow development of the electromobility-market in Europe and lack of political support for a shift to EVs, the German union of metal workers (IGM), has questioned the policy of ending internal combustion engines (ICEs) sales in Europe by 2035. This development showcases the strategic uncertainty organised labour faces in the twin transition. On the plant and shopfloor level, works councils and employees show different attitudes towards the electromobility transition: while some have been sceptical, arguing to maintain traditional products that constituted the foundation for growth and jobs, others have opted for more proactive initiatives in favour of electrified and digitalised products and processes before they even became a pressing issue (Dörre et al., 2024; Kalt, 2022). Overall, while research indicates an increasingly proactive role of organised labour, there are few studies that look at how transition strategies evolve at the plant level. More specifically, there is little comparison of transition experiences in different locations of the same corporate production network and the diverging ways workers representatives adjust in the context of rapidly evolving technological and global market challenges.
This paper thus examines how WCs in German automotive production networks develop strategic responses to the twin transition’s coupled pressures. Our hypothesis is that the twin transition challenges long-established works councils’ practices and brings forward increasingly heterogenous new approaches, strategic responses but also a lack of strategy. We use a qualitative, comparative case-study methodology, based on semi-structured interviews with works councils, trade union representatives, and factory managers across lead and peripheral plants in two German automotive companies. In doing so, we show that, while exploring new and innovative approaches aiming at effectively co-shape business model development, WC and trade union remain structurally dependent on management decisions and most transition efforts of workers representation remain within corporatist logics. Our research addresses three key questions: (1) How do transition approaches and experiences of WC differ between lead plants and peripheral sites in company production networks within Germany and in which form of struggles do they result? (2) Are there commonalities and nuances between successful, stuck or failed transitions and what factors impact the success or failure of worker participation? (3) What patterns of conflict and cooperation emerge in individual cases?
The article is structured as follows: in section 2 we elaborate a conceptual framework to analyse WCs strategy with regard to challenges of the transition. In Section 3, we present our methodology and data before presenting the results in section 4 and discussing them in section 5. Section 6 concludes the main findings and proposes aspects for further research.