Weakened by declining membership and increasing unemployment in the building sector, the German construction workers' trade union, IG BAU, decided in October 2001 fundamentally to restructure its organisation, rather than to merge with another union. As part of this restructuring process, IG BAU will 'delayer' its organisation and put more emphasis on interest representation for groups of workers in fields adjacent to construction (such as cleaning). Through this strategy, the union hopes to improve its prospects of recruiting new members.
At its national congress, held from 30 September to 5 October 2001 in Bonn, the Building, Agricultural and Environment Union (Industriegewerkschaft Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt, IG BAU) took important steps towards changing its internal structure substantially. The depth and magnitude of this change is unprecedented in the recent history of German trade unionism. While other member unions of the German Trade Union Federation (Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund, DGB) have chosen to compensate for declining membership by way of mergers (DE0104220F and DE9710233F), IG BAU hopes to streamline its structure in a way that makes it easier to attract new members.
Although IG BAU still represents about 40% of construction workers, it has been strongly affected by the decline of the entire building industry. Since 1995, one in three jobs in construction has been lost and consequently, IG BAU's membership has declined by 20% to reach 540,000 at the end of 2000. The new strategy, which was adopted by a majority of delegates at the recent congress, will eliminate an entire level within the organisation's hierarchy. This will leave IG BAU with a two-tier structure. According to Klaus Wiesehügel, IG BAU's national president, this new structure will greatly improve communication and the flow of information within the union. Within the new structure, local union branches (Bezirksverbände) will have direct representation on the IG BAU national advisory board (Gewerkschaftsbeirat) and thus have a say on a broad range of issues concerning general union policies.
In addition to this 'delayering', IG BAU will also put more emphasis on interest representation in specific branches. While traditionally the union's major focus was on the construction industry, which represented the core of its organising area, it will now give more attention to workers in fields such as gardening, landscaping, cleaning, and facilities management. In particular the cleaning industry, where some 700,000 mostly female workers are employed, is considered to provide a large reservoir for potential membership recruitment. Although wages and working conditions are considered to be mostly poor in cleaning, only 6.4% of the employees are members of IG BAU.
In the union's new structure, each of IG BAU's 11 national executive board members will be directly responsible for at least one of the 40 branches within the union's jurisdiction. Thus, board members are in charge of coordinating collective bargaining as well as membership recruitment within their particular industry. By restructuring the union along these new lines, IG BAU hopes to introduce a higher degree of accountability, but also hopes to make the benefits of union membership more visible to those workers who are not yet members of the organisation.