scholarly journals The minimum wage in Germany: what brought the state in?

Author(s):  
Deborah Mabbett
Keyword(s):  
2016 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-236
Author(s):  
Stephan Seiwerth

AbstractSocial partners have played a privileged role in German social security administration since Bismarckian times. In 2014, a new legislation empowered the social partners to set the level of the statutory minimum wage and to demand the extension of collective agreements. This article examines the interdependence of the trade unions’ and employer organisations’ membership numbers and their involvement in state regulation of labour and social security law. In case the interest in autonomous regulations is not going to increase, the state will have to step in with more heteronomous regulation. This would incrementally lead to a system change.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. 241 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimíra Žofčinová ◽  
Zuzana Horváthová ◽  
Andrea Čajková

Tax sovereignty is now an expression of the phenomenon of state power. In general, there is a widespread but also accepted view that a citizen is dependent on the state and the state is dependent on tax resources. The social status of a citizen in the state is of great importance; it affects the development of personality and, last but not least, reflects the degree of democracy acquired in a particular state. Various tax law measures for the benefit of the citizen are important for the identification of social behavior and are an attempt to improve certain ways of life. The aim and ambition of this article is to emphasize the tools of social policy (e.g., minimum wage, subsistence minimum, social right to work) that are related to the social function of taxing income. In this context, the authors deal with a social function of tax collection and imposing of taxes, justice in taxation, and point out social aspects of the system of taxes in the Slovak Republic. In this article, the authors present the attitudes of both critics and proponents. It also deals with tax justice, which is often a category subjective to the evaluator. The benchmarking attribute of tax collection should be that citizens will have the certainty of social justice in the state and will therefore pay attention to the minimum wage and subsistence minimum as an integral part of tax policy under the legal conditions of the Slovak Republic. All tax legislation, especially tax reform, is perceived with a certain sensitivity regarding tax subjects.


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Bosch ◽  
Claudia Weinkopf

This article concurs with Weiss’s critique of the myth of the powerless state, which underestimates the possibilities that remain open to nation states to take action. Even today in an environment characterized by globalized markets, nation states have at their disposal instruments that can effectively ensure high job quality. The Swedish and French examples show that the state, by means of various combinations of participative and protective labor standards, can ensure that there is a low share of low-wage workers and a high rate of coverage by collective agreements. Given sufficient political pressure, new standards, such as the minimum wage in Germany, can be put in place.


1992 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivien Hart

Bureaucrats, female or male, have never been popular, a fact which may, in part, explain neglect of their role by the growing band of students of women and politics. Theories of bureaucracy predict that this will be the least promising of settings for the empowerment of women. Max Weber's classic account depicts bureaucratic activity as a routinized and sterile process of technical determinations and rules of procedure. Some feminists argue that such modes of action epitomize the masculine. Each model portrays a rational, depersonalized, technocratic sphere of activity, hierarchical in structure, rule-bound both in what is done and how. In addition, the state itself has sometimes been presented as wholly oppressive to women, adding public power to private power to create a comprehensive system of male domination.


Author(s):  
William W. Franko ◽  
Christopher Witko

In this chapter the authors return to aggregate data to examine how the state minimum wage has responded to a growing awareness of inequality and other state political factors. The minimum wage was initially pursued by the states a number of years before the federal government adopted a minimum wage in the 1930s. However, the minimum wage law is still jointly controlled by the states and the federal government, allowing us to directly examine how federal inaction in raising the minimum wage spurs state minimum wage increases. The results show that federal inaction, a public awareness of growing inequality, and state government liberalism are significant predictors of increases in state minimum wages. The minimum wage is more likely to be increased in states with the initiative, even sometimes in states that are usually considered to be relatively conservative.


2021 ◽  
pp. 108-124
Author(s):  
Julia Payson

This chapter considers how city lobbying affects the overall policy environment from the perspective of the state. While results at the city level suggest that there are individual winners and losers from the lobbying process, this chapter shows how aggregate lobbying trends can systematically bias state transfers toward the interests of high-income cities, making them less progressive on average. At the same time, local officials don’t lobby for funding alone. Through a series of short case studies, this chapter also examines how the lobbying efforts of cities are shaping current policy debates in state legislatures, including preemption battles over minimum wage laws. While difficult to quantify the effects of these activities, taking a more holistic view of city lobbying paints a more nuanced and positive picture about its policy consequences.


1995 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 376-378 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Seltzer

Although in the last two decades there have been literally hundreds of studies of postwar minimum wage legislation, there have been but a handful of studies of the first federal minimum wage, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), and no studies of the state laws that preceded it.1 My dissertation attempts to bridge this gap by examining the political economy and effects of early American minimum wage legislation.


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