Print version Recommend this page Press release
12/ 2004
Bonn, 06.04.2004
Labour agreements offer opportunities for improving training place situation
In the current debate over the introduction of a training levy, labour agreements to foster vocational training are often discussed as the "better" alternative for generating additional training places. A study conducted by Germany's Federal Institute for Vocational Training ("BIBB") together with the Institute of Economic and Social Research ("WSI") at the Hans Böckler Foundation examined the training promotion agreements that labour and management implemented in recent years and assessed their effectiveness to date. The study came to the following conclusions: Labour agreements can be an effective tool for increasing the number of training places on offer. As a prerequisite however, both labour and management must consider company-level training and hiring practices to be problematic and accept labour agreements as being extremely binding. In addition, the following conditions should also be met:
- Agreements must contain precisely defined goals. It must be possible to ascertain whether these goals have been achieved. They must also be actionable for employees.
- Both labour and management must persuade companies to commit themselves to achieving the targeted goals.
- The respective trade union must be able to enforce sanctions in the event that the agreed upon goals aren't reached or commitments are not carried out.
As the BIBB-WSI study on labour agreements shows, there has been a marked trend in recent years for agreements in all sectors to be increasingly less binding. Essential parts of the above requirements were frequently not fulfilled, particularly in collectively negotiated arrangements to increase or safeguard the number of training places on offer: The targeted increase in the number of training places was for the most part not precisely stipulated and arrangements to monitor compliance with the agreement were seldom made. Provisions for sanctions in the event of non-compliance were practically non-existent. In many cases, labour and management appeared to place their hopes more on the symbolic effect of the particular agreement.
Industry and commerce reported by far the largest number of labour agreements to advance vocational training to date. By contrast, the skilled trades had relatively few agreements to show. Although the number of agreements in other sectors was also small, the agreements applied to large collective bargaining fields such as the civil service sector and social insurance carriers.
A new development emerged last year: The German government, industrial associations and trade unions appealed to labour and management in a joint declaration on the 2003 vocational training campaign to conclude more agreements to foster vocational training. Important collective bargaining fields such as the chemical industry and the metal-processing industry in Lower Saxony subsequently concluded new agreements on boosting the number of training places on offer. They differ from previous collective arrangements on fostering vocational training in that they are much more binding and include new elements.
The BIBB-WSI study examines in detail the structures and priorities of collectively bargained efforts to foster vocational training during the period 1996 through 2001. Case studies in selected sectors are used to illustrate the effectiveness of labour agreements to foster vocational training. The study then supplements this information with an examination of the findings of a survey of companies that provide in-house vocational training. This survey focused on these companies' assessment of labour agreements that are aimed at fostering vocational training. The study contains important pointers on how labour agreements for fostering vocational training can improve young people's chances of obtaining a training place and subsequently be hired by the training company upon completion of their course of training. The study however also makes clear the limits of this non-governmental tool for fostering vocational training.
The German-language study Tarifliche Ausbildungsförderung - Entwicklung der Regelungen von 1996 bis 2001 und Einschätzung ihrer Wirksamkeit by Ursula Beicht, Klaus Berger, Reinhard Bispinck and Johannes Kirsch can be ordered for €17.90 from W. Bertelsmann Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Postfach 10 06 33, 33506 Bielefeld, Germany; Tel. +49 521 - 911 0111, fax: +49 521 - 911 0119, e-mail: service@wbv.de
Information about this study is available at BIBB from Ursula Beicht (Tel.: +49 228 -107 1314, e-mail: beicht@bibb.de) or Klaus Berger (Tel.: +49 228 -107 1320, e-mail: berger@bibb.de).
