Conference on Organized labour
Responses to the Conference Paper
Professor Jörg Sydow, and Dr. Carsten Wirth
Institut fuer Allg. Betriebswirtschaftslehre , Free University of Berlin, Germany
29 July 1998
In responding to your inquiry we send you the following comment. Since we are currently involved in research on new forms of organization and labour in the German media industry we come permanently across forms of self-employment, freelancing, micro-firms, and project networks. These organization form of labour have a long tradition in this industry (as it has in the construction and software industry, for example), while in many other industries self-employment, freelancing, and contract work is a substitute for the traditional employment relationship. For that reason we expect unions in the media industry to have some experience with organizing this group of "workers" which is dependent on many work related services but does not seem to be inclined towards union membership. This is also true for many rapidly evolving services industries. As in franchising, there are rival forms of collective organization to unions, or they are likely to arise if the unions do not address the needs of these "employees". These rival forms may be community-based, professional or private. Since we cooperate with a colleague in the US. on the situation on the media industry we are aware of the fact that in the US. the collective organization of interest in this industry seems to be ahead of the situation in Germany.
We hope these comments are relevant to the dialogue you wish to initiate.
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