Regulation, Power and Scale: 'Reworking' Capital-Labour Relations in German SMEs

This paper is concerned with recent changes in the way capital-labour relations are regulated in german smes. By investigating 28 firm case-studies in the ruhr area, it is argued, first, that capital-labour relations in germany are getting downscaled and decentralised, profoundly changing the traditional power geometry between capital and labour; second, that the regulatory landscape is being 'reworked' in terms favourable to capital during a period in which the latter is in the ascendancy in the labour market; and, third, that there is a peculiar spatial dimension to the rearticulation of power relations and core institutions of the german model.