German American Conference

Lifting every worker‘s voice: Sharing Lessons From Germany and the U.S. The transformation of our world of work through data, communication and automation is in full swing. Workers, unions, businesses, and policy-makers are facing fundamental questions about how this transformation will affect workers, future skill needs and worker representation. At the same time, our highly-industrialized economies are plagued by rising inequality, pressures from globalization and a downward pressure on the quality of jobs. In the U.S., there is a growing recognition that shareholder value maximization and the weakness of unions and labor law have contributed to these developments. The German experience has been different: The involvement of workers as stakeholders and effective industrial relations have proven very successful in confronting these challenges while maintaining a competitive economy and highly-skilled workforce. Does the German experience of giving workers a voice through works councils, unions, and collective bargaining offer a model for a way forward in the U.S? How would labor law need to change? And how do German companies navigate the business and political environment when investing in the South of the U.S.?