Undermining the system? Labour relations in the German fast-food industry

As early as the 1930s, the Germany economy was already being described as the locomotive of Europe, indeed the recognition of its importance was explicit in the postwar settlement and the 1950 Schumann Plan that laid the foundations for the European Community (Swann, 1988). The German economic miracle that followed continued up until the oil crisis of the early 1970s. Although growth in the German economy has since slowed, it remains central to the development of the European economy and productivity levels have remained high. More recently, despite increasing global competition and the absorption of the previously communist Eastern German states, Germany has retained its dominant economic position in Europe alongside increasing political influence. It has been suggested that the German industrial relations system is one of the most important elements in the success of the German economy; widely praised for its containment of industrial conflict and for promoting a cooperative and highly skilled workforce (Lane, 1989, 1994; Turner, 1998).