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Class Conflict or Consensus? Understanding Social Partner Positions on Social Policy Reforms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 March 2023

Benedikt Bender Open the ORCID record for Benedikt Bender [Opens in a new window]
Benedikt Bender*
Affiliation:
Institute of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany
*
E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper addresses the positions of unions and employer associations towards the level of unemployment benefits and active labour market policy (ALMP). These are prominent examples of social compensation and social investment policies respectively. The new dataset ‘Reform Monitor on Political Conflict’ (ReMoPo) is based on expert interviews and a systematic text analysis of all relevant press releases. Over a time-span of 14 years (2000-2014) the data clearly shows conflict between social partners on the level of unemployment benefits whilst there is consensus towards ALMP. I show that, for unemployment benefits, different motivations do lead to different positions. However, for ALMP, different motivations combine with overlapping interests, resulting in a common positive stance. The main theoretical implications of these findings were two-fold: firstly, the type of organisation does not predict positioning on welfare state issues, whereas pragmatic considerations do. Secondly, I suspect that the divergence of motivational factors combined with a consensus towards particular measures is specific to the concept of social investment. This is because social investments (training and qualification measures in this case) were expected to have the most far-reaching and long-lasting positive effects on both individuals and companies and were therefore supported by unions and employer associations.

Keywords

social investmentsocial compensationpolitical economyemployer associationtrade unioncontent analysisGermany
Type
Article
Information
Journal of Social Policy , First View , pp. 1 - 18
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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