Collective Bargaining. Conceptual Instrumentalization in political Discourse

Starting from basic considerations on high-value concepts the contribution highlights the suitability for and vulnerability to instrumentalisation of such social key concepts as well as their exploitation as a discursive strategy of political actors. This strategy will be examined by using the example of the term "Tarifautonomie" - from its establishment as a political concept towards the outgoing 1960s to the present. The results show: The term "Tarifautonomie" is a crisis indicator. It points to different interpretations between labor market associations and the state regarding a functioning collective bargaining. The concept "Tarifautonomie" is used by state actors to semantically stabilise the appearance of associational autonomy in the context of de facto limitation of autonomy. Through such continuity suggesting instrumentalisation of an institutional concept the proposed change of the institutional substance often remains largely unnoticed.