"To summarise the institutional set-up, industry unions bargain with employers’ associations over regional wages, and neither works councils nor employee board representatives are formally involved at any stage. However, works councillors are usually union members, and board representatives are usually also works councillors, though some outside board members are appointed by the relevant union, so there are close personnel links between the three institutions...The design of the German system of co-determination has thus at least attempted to ameliorate the conflict between efficiency and distributional goals."