DEVELOPMENTS

German Labor Law in Transition

By Marita Krner*

A. Introduction

For decades, German labor law has been among the most advanced in the
world, although no labor code was ever enacted like, for e.g., in France with
its Code du travail adopted on 15th November 1973. In Germany, after
World War II, German labor legislation developed a great variety of specific
Acts covering individual and collective labor law. Basics, like protection
against dismissal or collective bargain-ing, as well as employee participation
in works councils, reached a high level. Although German law belongs to the
Continental legal systems and thus is mainly based on legislation, some of
the most important aspects of collective labor law, especially trade union law
and the right to strike are not regulated by statutory law.
Bundesarbeitsgericht (the Federal Labor Court) and
Bundesverfassungsgericht (the Federal Constitutional Court) filled in the
blanks step by step in a variety of decisions. Accordingly, these crucial fields
of labor relations are based on mere case law. It turned out to be politically
impossible to get trade union law and the law on strike and lock-outs
enacted. Despite statements to the contrary, the parties in-volved seem to be
content with this rather flexible handling. 1 On the whole, Ger-man labor law
became more and more protective over the years, including aspects like
equality and prohibition of discrimination in employment, sick-leave
payment, and the possibility to claim a part-time job under the 2000 Act on
Teilzeit- und Befris-tungsgesetz TzBfG (Part Time and Temporary Work).
The main structures of today's German labor law were developed in the
decades of the so-called Rhineland capitalism (named after the location of
the former capital Bonn on the Rhine River). 2 This form of capitalism stands
for a market economy

*Dr. jur., Privatdozentin, Institute of Civil, Economic and Labor Law,

Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University, Frankfurt. Email:
[email protected].
1 See e.g, RALPH BNGER, DER
VERHANDLUNGSBEGLEITENDE WARNSTREIK (1996), with
numerous referen-ces.
2 The term was eminently coined by MICHEL ALBERT,
CAPITALISME CONTRE CAPITALISME (1990). On the ongoing debate
over the fate and prospects of the German model of Capitalism, welfare
policy and corporate governance see e.g., Peer Zumbansen, Germany Inc.
Eroding? - Board Structure, CEO and Rhenish Capitalism, 3 GERMAN
LAW JOURNAL NO. 6 (1 JUNE 2002), available at:
http://www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=156; Jrgen Hoffmann,
Co-ordinated Continental
806 G E R M A N L A W J O U R N A L [Vol. 06 No.
04

which is, although capitalist in principle, characterized by important social

protec-tion and a more cooperative than antagonistic attitude between
employers and trade unions. This Rhineland capitalism grew after the Second
World War in the prosperous decades of the "old" Bonn Federal Republic.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reunification of West and East
Germany in 1989, priorities have shifted - slowly but steadily. In the first
years of the 1990s, many countries with comparable industrial structures
underwent major economic adjustments, including their social systems (e.g.
in Scandinavia), whereas Germany profited from East Germany's enormous
demand for goods. This gave the West German economy special conditions
against the global trend. At the same time, this slowed down the
implementation of necessary changes. However, the euphoric years were
soon over and the catch up work to adapt to the rest of the world began. As
Ger-many had lost so many years of realistically thinking about reforms
before putting them into life, the present Social-Democratic Berlin
government is now eager to catch up and laws are being passed in sometimes
hasty manners. It is not surpris-ing that in this atmosphere of urgent change,
labor law is high on the agenda.

B. Reasons for labor law reform

Why are changes necessary at all? Trade unions have been asking this
question during the past years, whereas employers have been demanding
fundamental changes, particularly in regard to the existing protective labor
law legislation. Globalization - one may like or dislike the term;
nevertheless, it is inevitable to rec-ognize that it is real and todays
globalization is something different from the out-ward orientation and global
focus of German companies in the past. Today's globalization is different
because world-wide open markets, especially for capital and the technical
possibilities of exchanging any type of information around the globe within
seconds, have practically dissolved national borders and drastically
undermined the effect of national legislation, especially if it is not considered
to be compatible with international capital market needs by the so-called
global players, i.e. transnational groups of companies. It is true that the
different branches of industry are not all touched by this effect to the same
extent, but on the whole, the pressure on companies to reduce costs continues
to increase due to the possibility to transfer production to other countries;
this has become a daily threat in collective bargaining. One of the latest
German examples is the drastic reduction in employment by General Motors
at the Opel plants in Germany.3 The remaining
Eurpoean Market Economies Under Pressure From Globalisation:
Germanys Rhineland capitalism, 5 GERMAN
LAW JOURNAL NO. 8 (1 AUGUST 2004), available at:
http://www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=485; Peter Kolla, The
Mannesmann Trial and the Role of the Courts, 5 GERMAN LAW
JOURNAL NO. 7 (1 JULY 2004), available at:
http://www.germanlawjournal.com/article.php?id=460.
2005] German Labor Law in Transition
807

General Motors at the Opel plants in Germany.3 The remaining workforce

has to make considerable concessions. In the service sector, globalization
affects employ-ees even more directly because no expensive transfers of
production are necessary. It is easy to establish a new office elsewhere as
soon as the legal, political and social frame in a country is no longer
considered compatible with company needs. The sinking importance of old
industrial structures and the growing importance of the service sector
accelerates the process. Meanwhile, it has been hoped that the losses of
employment in the production sector could be compensated for by more em-
ployment in the service sector. However, this is not the case as it is above all
the service sector which profits from the rapid development of information
technology so that many services function with few employees.

In listed companies, this tendency to reduce the workforce in order to reduce

costs is enforced by giving shareholder value priority over stakeholder
oriented ap-proaches.4 Against the American backdrop, a common
explanation is that institu-tional investors, above all pension and other funds,
pressurize boards to make short-term decisions in order to reduce costs. This
is supposed to lead to higher prices for shares, which influences the
performance of the fund (and the perform-ance of the fund manager). One of
the most effective measures of reducing costs in the short term is to dismiss
employees. This scenario may become more important in Germany in the
near future. So far, pension funds which are the main players in the United
States, rarely exist because pensions are paid out of a state pension sys-tem
and not by private funds. However, as the state system has to deal with the
demographic problem that fewer and fewer working people have to subsidize
a growing number of pensioners, first steps have been undertaken by the
German government to change the system. On the one hand, state pensions
have been and will be reduced over the coming years. On the other hand,
private pension systems will be subsidized by the state in order to incite
people to get involved in them. This will probably lead to a growing number
of pension funds which will inevita-bly exert considerable influence on
companies.

On the employees' side, the change in economic structures is reflected in

different employment biographies. Until the end of the 1990s, the so-called
normal employ-ment meant full-time for an unlimited period. In the
meantime, the number of tem-porary employment, subcontracted work and
freelance work, have increased con-

3 From the worldwide coverage of the events in Detroit and

Rsselsheim, See e.g., http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article /0,1564,
1362090,00.html; http://www.dw-
world.de/dwelle/cda/popups/dwelle.cda.popups.galeriebild/0,3804,266_G_1
427059_1426850
_17,00.html.http://www.detnews.com/2004/autosinsider/0410/19/autos-
306467.htm; http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/ 4083159.stm.
4 Pierre Habbard and Roy Jones, A breakthrough for stakeholders,
MITBESTIMMUNG NO. 8, (2004) 18.
808 G E R M A N L A W J O U R N A L [Vol. 06 No.
04

siderably. During the phase of the Rhineland capitalism, life-long

employment was the rule.5 Now employment has become far less steady. For
many, phases of em-ployment, often temporary, are followed by
unemployment, extended vocational training or freelance work. On the
whole, employee income is stagnating or de-creasing. These structural
employment problems show up particularly in the con-tinuously high
unemployment rate. Unemployment already started to rise in Ger-many in
the late 1970s and has not significantly been reduced ever since. In 2003, the
unemployment rate was 8.4% for the old Lnder6 and 18.5% for the new
Lnder7, thus a decisive factor in German politics. As a consequence, the
reduction of unem-ployment is one of the principal arguments for changes in
labor law. According to well accepted logic, it is the high level of labor
protection that prevents employers from employing people (and foreign
investors from investing in German corpora-tions). On the other side of this
coin, there is the idea that less anti-dismissal law, less anti-discrimination
legislation or less collective bargaining rights, could incite more employers
to build up their workforce.

C. Labor law on the 65th Deutscher Juristentag (German Lawyers

Association Symposium)

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that the Deutscher Juristentag -

DJT (Ger-man Lawyers Association 65th Symposium) dealt with this subject
during its last session in September 2004. The German Jurists Forum is an
association of jurists, including judges, the legal profession and academics,
dating back to the 19th cen-tury. They deal with current legal issues which are
prepared by reports. The DJT recommendations have often had an impact on
the legislature. The different legal matters are treated in Abteilungen
(working groups) whose propositions are put to the vote of the attending
lawyers. The underlying reports, the discussions in the working groups, and
the votes, are published and constitute no less than an impor-tant archive and
witness to contemporary legal history in Germany.8
In the labor law working group, the central topic was whether or not labor
law should be different for small and medium size enterprises (SME),
different mean-ing less protective. SME are considered enterprises with a
maximum of 249 em-

5 MICHEL ALBERT, CAPITALISME CONTRE CAPITALISME

(1990).
6 Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland: available at:
www.destatis.de/basis/d/erwerb/erwerbtab3.php.
7 Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland: available at:
www.destatis.de/basis/d/erwerb/erwerbtab4.php.
8 Deliberations of the 65th German Lawyers Association Symposium
2004 (Verhandlungen des 65. Deut-schen Juristentages, Bonn 2004, Band I:
Gutachten; Band II/1: Referate und Beschlsse; Band II/2: Diskussion und
Beschlussfa
ssung).
2005] German Labor Law in Transition
809

ployees. The underlying concept is that German labor law is considered to be

more difficult to adopt for smaller companies than for larger ones leading to
a situation where the SME do not employ personnel because they fear the
(expensive) conse-quences of the law. The rapporteur of the working group,
Professor Abbo Junker of the University of Gttingen, analyzed this question
under two aspects: first, he took into consideration the Act on Protection
against Dismissal9; secondly, the Works Constitution Act10idea of
deregulating labor law in favor of SME is of great rele-vance because two
thirds of all employees in Germany work in entities of this size and 99% of
all enterprises belong to this group. Changing the law for small and medium
size enterprises therefore would mean changing labor law as such.

I. Protection against dismissal

1. Propositions

In individual labor law, protection against dismissal is a key subject. In

Germany, this field was first covered by general clauses of civil law until
1969 when the Kndigungsschutzgesetz (Unfair Dismissal Act) first came
into force. On the basis of the current legislation, there is still a high level of
protection against dismissal. Al-though the Act is conceived to guarantee
employment for an unlawfully dismissed person, in reality, it has developed
into a mere severance pay system. This means that in a case of unlawful
dismissal, the dismissed employee will not be reem-ployed but will merely
receive compensation. This is due to an exception clause in the Act which
allows either party to reject reemployment for loss of confidence (Art. 9 of
the Dismissal Protection Act). There are hardly any dismissal cases where
employers do not have recourse to this clause. Consequently, practically no
em-ployer is bound to continue work with an employee if s/he is not willing
to. How-ever, if dismissal is unlawful, it is costly. These costs are the reason
for demanding change of the Act in favor of SME. Still, the rapporteur to the
65th DJT did not argue for a structural change of the Act. The proposition was
more elegant. Today, the Act is only applicable if ten employees are working
in the enterprise. For units be-low this threshold, the Dismissal Protection
Act is not applicable at all. According to Professor Junker, in order to
promote SME, the easiest thing to do would be to raise the threshold to 20
employees. In 2004, the threshold was changed under the present
government in Art. 23 of the Dismissal Protection Act 11 from five to ten
employees by government even though past experience had shown that this
would

9 Abbo Junker, Arbeitsrecht zwischen Markt und

gesellschaftspolitischen Herausforderungen, Gutachten B zum
65. DEUTSCHEN JURISTENTAG 46 (2004).
10 Id.., 84.
11 BGBl. I p. 602.
810 G E R M A N L A W J O U R N A L [Vol. 06 No.
04

not help raise the employment rate. From 1996 until 1998, the then
conservative government had changed the threshold accordingly without a
traceable effect on employment. Therefore, in 1998, the new government
took back this change but re-enacted it a few years later.12 So now we stand
at a threshold of ten employees for the application of the Unfair Dismissal
Act. In this situation, an increase of the threshold would indeed prevent
many small enterprises from having to apply the Act. However, it is difficult
to understand why 20 employees would be the magic figure to help SME.
Why not 15 or 50 or any other figure, especially as they already exist in
German labor law which has to deal with some 160 thresholds in numerous
Acts.13 They are apparently an important means to grade the level of
employee protection.14 So the Betriebsverfassungsgesetz (Works Constitution
Act - BetrVG) of 25 September 2001 is applicable only for enterprises with a
minimum of 5 employees. The right to work part-time as provided for in the
Teilzeit- und Befristungsgesetz (Act on Part Time and Temporary Work
TzBfG) of 21 December 2000 has only to be granted by employers who
employ more than 15 employees (Art. 8 para. 7 of the Act). Art. 622 of the
Brgerliches Gesetzbuch (German Civil Code - BGB), provides for
minimum terms of notice to terminate a contract of employment. Art. 622
para. 5 No. 2 concedes an exception in cases where an employer does not
have more than 20 employees. The main argument for these thresholds is to
reduce the "burden of labor law" for small enterprises 15, but this does not
disprove that the figures are arbitrary. Even Prof. Junker admits that there is
no logic in these figures16. Conse-quently, it is very likely that the number of
20 employees is only a further step in the race to the bottom of unfair
dismissal law.

This pessimistic view is even more realistic with regard to the second
threshold in the Unfair Dismissal Act: even if the enterprise is large enough,
the Act is only ap-plicable for employees who have been with the same
employer for at least six months. Professor Junker pointed out that it would
help SME to extend this period without explicitly saying what other period
he was thinking of. However, in labor law discussion, the most recent
proposition was that only those employees who

12 As to the recent amendments to the Dismissal Protection Act cf.

Thomas Ubber, Agenda 2010: Reform of German Labor Law: Impact on
Hiring and Firing Staff, 5 GERMAN LAW JOURNAL NO. 2 (1
FEBRUARY 2004), available at: http://www.germanlawjournal.com
/article.php?id=380.
13 Abbo Junker & Ute Dietrich, Schwellenwerte in arbeitsrechtlichen
Gesetzen, NEUE ZEITSCHRIFT FR AR-BEITSRECHT (NZA) 2003,
1057.
14 Esther Endress, Schwellenwertregelungen im Arbeitsrecht -
Verfassungsrechtliche und rechtspolitische Fragen, 2002.

15 See, supra, note 9 at S. 39.

16 See, supra, note 13 at 1059.
2005] German Labor Law in Transition
811

have worked with the same employer for a minimum of three years should
have recourse to the Unfair Dismissal Act. Essentially, this means that
employees would be on probation for a three year period.

2. No evidence

The main argument for these propositions is that a lighter Unfair Dismissal
Act could increase the employment rate. This, however, needs evidence.
Generally, the economic and social effect of a law are not very well
researched before put into force. There is also very little empirical proof of
the effects on society once enacted. Normally, law is put into force on the
basis of mere assumptions, without any em-pirical evidence. In labor law,
however, there are several up-to-date empirical stud-ies on the practice of the
Unfair Dismissal Act, especially in SME 17. There is a ten-dency among
employers to perceive labor law negatively which may explain a cer-tain
psychological bias against protective labor legislation.18 The main results of
the surveys are, however, that the threshold has no effect on employment. In
reality, other problems may prevent SME from employing more personnel.
Many of them have financial problems because credit terms are very rigid.
Outstanding accounts can sometimes even threaten their existence. This was
also the conclusion of Profes-sor Heide Pfarr, chairperson of the Hans
Bckler Foundation, in her report which she presented at the 65 th DJT19 in
annotation to Professor Junkers presentation. Professor Dieter Sadowski, an
economist from the University of Trier, came to a similar result in his
report.20 He admitted that the Unfair Dismissal Act may pre-vent
employment but pointed out that it would also be likely to prevent dismissal.
Economically, this would lead to a zero-sum game. In the end, there would
be no

17 Thomas K. Bauer, Stefan Bender, & Holger Bonin, Dismissal

Protection and Worker Flows in Small Estab-lishments, IZA DISCUSSION
PAPER NO. 1105, APRIL 2004; Sher Verick, Threshold Effects of Dismissal
Protection Legislation in Germany, IZA DISCUSSION PAPER NO. 991,
JANUARY 2004; Werner Friedrich & Helmut Hge-le, konomische
Konsequenzen von Schwellenwerten im Arbeits- und Sozialrecht sowie die
Auswirkung dieser Regelungen - Kurzfassung des Endberichts, 1997;
JOACHIM WAGNER, CLAUS SCHNABEL & ARND KLLING, IN:
DETLEV EHRIG & PETER KALMBACH (EDS.): WENIGER
ARBEITSLOSE - ABER WIE?, (2001) 177; Harald Bie-linski, Josef
Hartmann, Heide Pfarr, & Hartmut Seifert, Die Beendigung von
Arbeitsverhltnissen: Wahr-nehmnung und Wirklichkeit, ARBEIT UND
RECHT (2003), 81.
18 Peter Janen, Arbeitsrecht und unternehmerische
Einstellungsbereitschaft, 31 IW-TRENDS NO. 2 (2004), 16.
19 Heide Pfarr, Arbeitsrecht zwischen Markt und
gesellschaftspolitischen Herausforderungen - Differenzierung nach
Unternehmensgre?, paper presented at the 65th German Lawyers
Association Symposium 2004 (not yet published).
20 Dieter Sadowski, Arbeitsrecht zwischen Markt und
gesellschaftspolitischen Herausforderungen: Differenzie-rung nach der
Unternehmensgre?, economic paper presented at the 65th German
Lawyers Association Symposium 2004 (not yet published).
812 G E R M A N L A W J O U R N A L [Vol. 06 No.
04

more or less employment with or without unfair dismissal protection. 21

However, as Professor Sadowski pointed out, the structure of the employees
has influenced more women, young people, and long-term unemployed to
stay without employ-ment under an unfair dismissal protection regime.

II. Works councils

Even modest enlargement of the works council's rights in 200122 have been
criti-cized; although, at the same time, there were propositions to transfer
rights from the collective bargaining units - trade unions and employers'
organizations (which were industry-wide in Germany) - to the works council
level. At the 65th Jurists' Forum it was not explicitly this 2001 reform which
was on the agenda but the fact that the most important works council's rights
were said to be too far-reaching for SME. In Germany, a works council may
be elected by all employees in companies with a minimum of five
employees. For special rights, the underlying Act, the Works Constitution
Act, provides for thresholds. So for example, an Economic Committee which
has specific information rights can only be constituted in compa-nies with a
minimum of 100 employees. However, on the whole, the main codeter-
mination rights of the works council are not linked to the size of the
company. Therefore the proposition on the 65th Jurists' Forum was to grade
the rights of the works council according to the size of the company so that
in SME, a works council would have fewer rights than in larger companies.

According to the opposing position however, on the one hand, the

establishment of a works council is not compulsory anyway. It must only be
elected if employees want it to be elected. In practice, less than one third of
companies with up to 100 employees have a works council. In entities with
up to 20 employees, the rate is only 4 percent. 23 If the vast majority of SME
have no works council, there is no need to provide for special SME-rights.
On the other hand, experience with graded rights of works councils, e.g. in
France, has not been positive. There the Comit d'entreprise with relatively
far-reaching rights may only be elected in companies with 50 or more
employees. For smaller ones, there are other employee representatives, les
dlgus du personnel, with fewer rights. The system is very complex and
often con-

21 Stephen Nickell & Richard Layard, Labor Market Institutions and

Economic Performance, 3 HANDBOOK OF
LABOR ECONOMICS C. 3080 (1999); Ronald Schettkat, Mehr Arbeit
durch weniger Recht?, WIRTSCHAFTS-DIENST NO. 83 (2003), 225.
22 See further Manfred Weiss, Modernizing the German Works Council
System: A Recent Amendment, 18
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LABOUR LAW AND
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS (IJCLLIR) NO. 3
(2002), 251.
23
BT-Dr (Official Gazette - Bundestagsdrucksache) 14/5741, p. 2.
2005] German Labor Law in Transition
813

fusing, even for the representatives themselves. In short, it is not very

effective but very bureaucratic24 and thus not a model for other countries to
follow.
III. Elsewhere, too: Labor law under pressure

To complete the picture of the present state of German labor law, two more
fields shall be mentioned where deregulation is also at stake. They were not
officially on the agenda at the 65th Jurists' Forum but they were tightly
connected to what was discussed there.

1. Right to work part-time

Only four years ago a right to work part-time was guaranteed to employees
who wished to reduce their working hours in companies with a minimum of
15 employ-ees.25 If an employee so required, the employer had to grant part-
time work unless s/he was able to prove urgent economic grounds not to do
so. This new right has been much criticized for restricting the flexibility of
employers which is why it is also threatened.

2. Collective bargaining

The legal rules for collective bargaining were only on the agenda indirectly.
This is, however, a crucial topic. Collective bargaining in Germany takes
place on branch and regional levels between trade unions and employers'
organizations. Works councils, which are formally independent from trade
unions, also have bargaining powers which are strictly separated from the
trade union level. Works councils may only deal with certain matters in so-
called Betriebsvereinbarungen (company agree-ments).26 Company
agreements must not treat matters which are normally dealt with in collective
bargaining agreements (between trade union and employer), above all salary
and working time. Exceptions are possible if the collective bargain-ing
agreements contain opening clauses for company agreements or if company
agreements are more favorable for employees. In case of conflict, collective
bargain-ing agreements between trade unions and employers organizations
prevail. In practice, however, many company agreements directly contravene
the law. The most popular setting is the following: works councils negotiate
agreements with the

24 MARITA KRNER, FORMEN DER

ARBEITNEHMERMITWIRKUNG: DAS FRANZSISCHE COMIT
D'ENTREPRISE
(1999).
25 Marlene Schmidt, The Right to Part-time Work under German law:
Progress in or boomerang for equal em-ployment opportunities? 30
INDUSTRIAL LAW JOURNAL (2001) 335.
26 Art. 77 Works Constitution Act of 21st September 2001.
814 G E R M A N L A W J O U R N A L [Vol. 06 No.
04

employer which provide for longer working hours and/or less pay than
granted in the relevant collective bargaining agreement. As compensation,
employers promise to refrain from dismissals for a certain period, arguing
that this package is more favorable for employees than the collective
bargaining agreement. This type of agreement is daily practice in Germany.27
In the leading Burda-case, however, the Federal Labor Court confirmed its
preceding decision that only the same types of working conditions may be
compared.28 Thus, the working time of the collective bargaining agreement
could be reduced by a works council company agreement. A link between
working time or salary and job guarantee is, however, not permissi-ble. The
trade union, of course, could negotiate such an agreement. Only the works
council is not in a position to do so. Consequently, more far-reaching
opening clauses in collective bargaining agreements or even a general
opening clause in the relevant Acts are on the agenda in order to better adapt
the law to the needs of the shop floor.29 Then agreements between trade
unions and employer would only provide a frame for further negotiation. The
crucial details would then be negoti-ated on the shop floor level by the works
councils and the employers. At first glance this would lead to a stronger
position of the works council. Here we are back to the 65th Jurists' Forum,
where works councils rights were considered to be too extended.

D. Conclusion

This discussion shows clearly what the debate is all about: although there is
need for adaptations, the creation of more employment does not always seem
to be the major concern. Of course, this is not openly put forward but many
may think that the present situation, with weakened unions and employees
under pressure, may be a good chance to deregulate labor law on a wider
scale.

However, there is no need for a SME labor law. Thresholds in Labor Law
Acts are arbitrary: why 20, why not 15, 50 or 100? There is no plausible
argument for any of these figures. Also, the economic argument is not
convincing. Economic theory seems to support the view that protection of
labor is an obstacle for the economy. However, even economists are divided
on this. As mentioned above, studies prove

27
Cf. Achim Seifert, Employment Protection and Employment Promotion as
Goals of Collective Bargaining in the Federal Republic of Germany, 15
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LABOUR LAW AND
INDUS-TRIAL RELATIONS (IJCLLIR)_ NO. 4 (1999), 343.
28
BAG AP Nr. 89 zu Art. 9 GG (20 April 1999).
29
Herbert Buchner, ffnung der Tarifvertrge im Spannungsfeld
verfassungsrechtlicher Vorgaben und arbeits-marktpolitischer Erfordernisse,
in: GEDCHTNISSCHRIFT FR MEINHARD HEINZE 105 (ALFRED
SLLNER ET AL.
EDS. 2005).
2005] German Labor Law in Transition
815

that especially dismissal law has no influence on the employment rate.

Instead of dividing labor law into units for SME and other companies, it
would be more for-ward-looking to further develop the concept of flexicurity
- more flexibility for the economy with enough security for employees. And
finally, hardly anybody seri-ously asks what the loss of social protection will
cost the economy.
816 G E R M A N L A W J O U R N A L [Vol. 06 No.
04