Skills Development and Labour Union- A Case Study on the Analysis of the Role of Labour Union in Skills
4. Future Challenges
1) Ongoing debate on the design of trade union policies in the context of the incisive changes taking place
In the course of the tussle to improve the economic, social and political situation of working men
and women, trade unions have become a strong, successful force for protecting their members and shaping their milieu. Many working people in Germany currently enjoy a level of prosperity which previous generations could not have imagined. At the same time, at the start of the twenty-first cen- tury, more and more people are feeling the pinch of mass unemployment, the new poverty and cut- backs in social benefits which had been regarded as secure.
Strong, influential trade unions are also of essence for the society’s future. The conflict of interests between capital and labour continues to leave its mark on economic and social development in capitalist market economies. At the same time, other conflicts, which do not arise from the antago- nistic interests of capital and labour, have gained importance economically and socially. Conflicts between the sexes, the clash between economic development and ecological renewal and the con- flict between increasing globalization and a narrower ethnic or nationalistic perspective also give rise to oppression and a lack of liberty, as well as to dependency and exploitation.
All of this calls for differentiated explanations and a broader understanding of trade union action.
The trade union’s strength and their ability to stand up for employees’ interests both in conflict and in cooperation with employers’ associations have coloured the way in which the social state and society have developed as well as helping to consolidate democracy. However, more and more signs are appearing which indicate that social cohesion is beginning to dissolve. There is an in- crease in injustice and discriminatory treatment of various groups which is a real risk that the con- sensus expressed in the social nature of our state, which has characterized our society for decades, will disintegrate.
The source of trade union power is the immense number of members. In turn, this number of peo- ple who become members of the trade unions depends how much chance they have to become per- sonally involved and stand up for their own interests. If commitment to trade unionism has flagged in recent years, the unions themselves must take part of the blame. Political culture within the unions had often grown cumbersome and unwieldy, and there was a lack of openness in the demo- cratic process. Trade unions task for the future is to find a new balance in the relationship between the private individual and the community, to provide a new experience of solidarity. The DGB is doing its part in this process of redirection. It wants more democratic involvement for its member- ship and less red tape.
Although in 2014 the DGB trade unions can look back on a number of important achievements, a number of unresolved problems remain. For example, a majority of DGB trade unions have, for the time being, halted the decline in membership. Overall, however, the DGB has not reversed the trend. Organising the private service sector remains the biggest challenge. The minimum wage campaign waged by the DGB, the NGG and ver.di brought the trade unions a victory of a kind not seen for a long time. IG Metall’s campaign against temporary employment did much to make an is- sue of precarious working conditions in Germany. At the same time, it was important for IG Metall that core export industries came through the crisis relatively unscathed. All these activities have raised the profile of the DGB trade unions and their social visibility.
At the same time, current trade union policy is not without ambivalences and conflicting aims, often resulting in controversy. The efforts of IG Metall and IG BCE to boost export industry are to some extent in conflict with ver.di’s desire for more public investment in services. The temporary employment campaign gave rise to internal trade union conflicts with those works councils that regarded temporary work as a necessary buffer against economic downturn and accepted it mainly as a flexibility tool. Even the minimum wage campaign initially had to overcome considerable con- cerns and reservations among the trade unions themselves. Although the minimum wage now in prospect – especially its staggered mechanism for increases – will alleviate the low-wage problem in Germany it will by no means eliminate it. Its implementation will be monitored carefully and influence further discussions within the trade unions.
The DGB trade unions have agreed on a strategy of seeking to help shape the policy of the new CDU/CSU/SPD government rather than to oppose it. That is also clear in relation to the minimum wage and temporary work, as discussed here. The dominant view in the DGB is that the current balance of power in society precludes any fundamental shift in terms of social redistribution. At the same time, it is expected that the government at least has no intention of exacerbating the social situation and the low-wage sector, which erupted in the 2000s, will be kept in check from now on.
It remains to be seen whether this assessment will prove true. In any case, this stance – although barely conspicuous – could entail a shift in the division of labour among the DGB trade unions.
The role of the DGB as umbrella organisation could be accentuated in the coming years. Whether and in what sense this will bring about a politicisation of trade union policy is currently in the lap of the gods, however.
2) Promoting reforms in the educational system, in particular in the VET-system
(1) Comprehensive approaches to promoting permeability
Permeability between different sectors of education means that educational qualifications in one field at the same time open up access to other sectors of education, that performance and learning outcomes from one sector of education can be recognised and credited in a different sector. In Ger- many, the educational pathways are delineated from one another more clearly than in many other European countries, both in their access requirements and in the certificates acquired. This has implications in particular for the permeability between vocational and academic education, which trade unions has been calling for since the 1990s.
In recent years considerable efforts have been made to substantially improve the permeability between general, vocational and higher education. But despite a variety of concepts and reform efforts, access to higher education is only beginning to be realized for those with vocational quali- fications. The creation of permeability is therefore an urgent and ongoing issue in the educational policies of the trade unions, also for the future. Coordinated curricula are required by trade unions to facilitate this, along with more information on the options for vocational progression. Merely implementing the KMK guideline of university admission for those with occupational experience but without a university entrance qualification does not got far enough. Trade unions recommend more guidance options; there are too few bridges into higher education study, and precious little adaption of curricula to this group of students with occupational experience. Study programmes compatible with employment are in short supply, particularly at the public universities. All findings point to this as a clear area of demand.
In addition to this, the trade unions are well aware of the fact that permeability is not something to first be introduced in the later stages of education. Permeability can be achieved only if the education system as a whole – from the Kindergarten to tertiary education – provides transparent and permeable development pathways. That means that transitions at all interfaces of the educa- tion system must become more fluid and must serve the purpose not of selection but of opening up many options. Trade unions strongly urge that in each phase of education and training, all other educational pathways and certificates must always be open and remain accessible. Judging by the experience gained from international comparisons, this assumes, on the one hand, that decisions about educational pathways on finishing general education should if possible not be made before the completion of the lower secondary education. On the other hand, these investigations also show
that permeability and equality of opportunity can only be achieved if continuous and individual promotion is the guiding principle of all education.
(2) Recognition of informally acquired skills
Recognition of informally acquired skills is a further big political and social challenge facing Ger- many and its trade unions. The increasing importance of documentation and recognition of results of informal learning is a direct result of the lifelong learning initiatives of the European Commis- sion. Unlike many other European countries, Germany has no statutory regulations and approved procedures. This is partly due to the fact that as yet there has been little demand for the recognition of informally acquired skills.
The recommendation of the European Commission to the member countries to develop systems for the validation of non-formal and informally acquired skills up to 2018 will continue to be a chal- lenge in the area of educational politics in Germany in the future. The German trade unions also recognize that these demands have set a direction for educational policies and have signalized, that they will intensively engage themselves in the process of implementing and forming the recom- mendations of the EU on a national level. With regard to the strategic objective of “realisation of lifelong learning and mobility” for trade unions it is not only an absolute necessity to institute bet- ter linkages between formal validation on informal and non-formal learning pathways. Moreover, the aim is that standards for non-formal and informal acquired competencies should be applied by workers representatives.
The standards for non-formal and informally acquired skills can be implemented by works and employment councils on the levels of tariff policies but also and within the individual works to en- able them to classify and evaluate the work experience gained by the employees after completion of their vocational education. Qualifications will thus be comprehended on a wider level leading to recognition not only of formally acquired degrees, but also of non-formal and informally acquired skills that will open new chances for employees concerning their earnings and their perspectives.
Informal and non-formal learning, in the sense of managing situations and solving problems to meet the demands of work in practice, is characteristically highly individual and context-depen- dent. However, the DQR is geared towards reflecting qualifications and not individual learning and career biographies. As an instrument of transparency for use as a means of establishing the com- patibility of learning outcomes, it cannot adequately communicate individual, personalised learn-
ing outcomes. The prerequisite for the inclusion of non-formal and informal learning in the DQR is therefore that the learning outcomes are identified, assessed, aggregated, and correlated with quali- fications.
Often learners are not consciously aware of the outcomes of non-formal and informal learning, particularly in the form of experiential learning, and these need to be made visible before they can be recognised. Validation procedures, as used in some European countries for the certification of competence but mainly confined to advisory settings in Germany, therefore need to be multi- stepped in design. The essential prerequisites for validation are standards for the bodies of knowledge, skills and competences to be assessed, and for the assessment itself. If validation standards refer to existing qualifications, validation can lead directly to an educational qualification and hence to a recognised certificate assigned to a qualifications framework level. But it can also be applied to parts of a course or to obtaining credit for prior learning. Accordingly, it facilitates transition routes or access to courses, and can contribute to permeability between courses or, equally, to the shortening of learning periods. Hence it can build the desired bridge to formal learning.
Among different options for validating non-formal and informal learning, the trade unions are in line with the DQR working group. Their option is to aim for a uniform, competence-based
system, which would capture and assess all the qualifications and skills acquired according to uniform standards. This would mean the competence-oriented reformulation of existing standards, taking account of non-formal and informal learning. In this connection, the inclusion of non-formal and informal learning calls for an extension of the concept of competence, since the descriptors of the draft DQR could only capture the special dimensions of informal learning in a limited way or with undue emphasis on cognitive aspects.
With its aims of establishing the comparability of qualifications in order to foster cross-border mobility and lifelong learning, and with its emphasis on competences or learning outcomes, the DQR can pave the way for the recognition of non-formal and informal learning. In a similar vein, the DQR Working Group combines with its implementation the opportunity to move closer to the principle that, in Germany, ‘what is important is what you are capable of and not where you learnt it’. Even if this is only realised to a limited extent in the present draft DQR, a learning- outcome-based DQR can be expected to have long-term repercussions for the education system.
In vocational education, it can be assumed that the drafting of training regulations will begin
to take account of the DQR classification system. And even if little is known as yet about the implementation of the DQR, it is likely that in future not only reports and certificates will contain references to DQR levels, but in the long term, procedures for determining competence will become established which refer to its competence categories and levels.
These changes can only develop step by step over a longer period of time, however. One important step would be to implement options within the DQR process which permit ongoing evaluations of the DQR, to ensure that it continues to evolve in parallel with the changes in the education system and accommodates both experiential and knowledge-based learning.
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