8 ms·

It's admirable to me that unions protect low-skilled workers from losing their job, not by preventing them from getting fired at current wages, but by accepting

• kensai 9y ago
  This. Germany is one of the few places that Unions are working (mostly) as intended. When Germany was under pressure in the Schröder era, it was the Unions that helped dealing with convincing the workers to accept shorter shifts and salaries, instead of pushing companies to relocation or, worse, bankruptcy.
  • maxxxxx 9y ago
    No idea why you got downvoted. Your comment is right on.
    • cnlevy 9y ago
      Maybe from a non-German union ?
  • agumonkey 9y ago
    Interesting. For those who know Germany, it's often said that even if the economic numbers are high, there's a lot of poor workers that need two jobs to live. Is it true ? true but only a small % ? normal according to you ?
    • ManuelKiessling 9y ago
      I can only report from a viewpoint inside my own filter bubble obviously, but this "two or three jobs to earn a living" is something that is still associated with the US here and practically unheard of in Germany.
      • goldbricked 9y ago
        Well, then i guess your bubble has a particularly large diameter. With almost 1 in 10 workers in Germany being part of the 'working poor' [1], there would otherwise be one in your social circle. [1] https://www.boeckler.de/106575_109897.htm https://www.boeckler.de/106575_109897.htm
        • germanier 9y ago
          The definition of "working poor" they use is not "having two or more jobs" but "earning less than 60% of the median". According to IAB 2.7 million workers have a second job in Germany (which is about 1 in 12). Most of them probably because they don’t earn enough in their first.
          • readittwice 9y ago
            Not to forget that this number alone doesn't mean anything, we still need to compare this number to other countries or to the past. But then we also need to consider stuff like this: AFAIR the number of "working poor" or "relative poor" decreased in/after the crisis 2008. Why? Not because companies paid more during the crisis but simply since the median income decreased.
        • pgeorgi 9y ago
          "Working poor" in Germany means having to use the social security systems to make up for the difference between what they earn and what they need. And yes, this means that those jobs are tax subsidized.
      • agumonkey 9y ago
        It used to be an Americanism, but French documentaries showed the disappointments of many factory jobs; and lots of politicians there too say that the economic wonder is only so because they allowed for very harsh but unmeasured life condition.
      • maxxxxx 9y ago
        What I hear is that things are going downhill in Germany too with Euro jobs and eternal internships. but i think there is generally still an assumption to you should be able to live from a full time job
    • lispm 9y ago
      There is still the East/West divide. Less jobs and lower payment in the East. Then there is a larger sector with low-paid jobs and lots of people from East Germany and Central/East Europe competing. The EU rights makes it easy for EU-citizens to look for jobs in Germany. Mostly everybody with medium- or high qualifications should have no problems finding a well-paid job. Across all ages. In the western parts of Germany...
      • agumonkey 9y ago
        I've recently read that the east still hasn't recovered from the pre reunification lag... crazy.
        • usrusr 9y ago
          Has southern Italy ever recovered from not being the north? Has the American Midwest recovered from not being one of the coasts? Economies naturally concentrate and countering that takes not only effort and dedication but also wise decisions and luck. West Germany used to be very good at this, but concentration to a few major cities has been accelerating recently. It's not only eastern Germany that is being left behind, the weaker regions of the former west are suffering from the same draw.
          • agumonkey 9y ago
            I see, quite interesting.
          • adventured 9y ago
            > Has the American Midwest recovered from not being one of the coasts? That's not a great reference point. It only works well if you're only talking about New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut. California's GDP per capita is only about 8%-10% higher than Nebraska. Iowa is as high as Oregon. Illinois is 30% higher than Florida. Indiana is higher than Vermont. Wisconsin is higher than North Carolina. Minnesota is close to Maryland. South Dakota is higher than New Jersey or Virginia. Kansas is 20% higher than Maine. Missouri is higher than South Carolina. Ohio is on par with Rhode Island. The US mid-west is an economic juggernaut compared to the rest of the world. It's larger than the economies of France or the UK, and nearly as big as Germany. Averaged out it's very comparable to the coastal states.
    • fnordian_slip 9y ago
      In addition to what ManuelKiessling already said, I can also report that in my bubble this is not the case, but it is hard to accurately judge our bubbles. According to this bar chart on wealth distribution in the EU [1] there is a huge difference between the average and median wages in Germany, so I would expect the group of poor workers to be much larger than we think it is. Of course, being poor in Germany might mean something different than in the US, since we still have better access to healthcare (at least in my opinion, I don't know enough about the US system to be 100% sure). [1]: http://media0.faz.net/ppmedia/aktuell/wirtschaft/831437975/1.2142930/default/vermoegensverteilung-im.jpg http://media0.faz.net/ppmedia/aktuell/wirtschaft/831437975/1... \EDIT: I should have cited the source accurately, the chart comes from the FAZ, a huge and respected German newspaper.
      • deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      • readittwice 9y ago
        Your chart is about assets not income/wages as you claim. Since the chart is in German too, readers can't see that. People in Germany seem to prefer rent over freehold property, this might explain Germany's low numbers compared to other states.
        • fnordian_slip 9y ago
          Maybe my English skills aren't up to what I thought they were, so please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't "Bruttojahreseinkommen" "gross annual income"? On the left there is wealth (/assets, "Vermögen"), then the next part is about the percentage of people who own houses ("Anteil Hausbesitzer"), and then comes the meat of the chart, the difference in gross annual income ("Bruttojahreseinkommen"). I am sorry to venture so far off topic, but I do most of my thinking either in German or in English which makes me vulnerable to stupid mistakes when the two overlap, so I would really appreciate it if you could tell me where I went wrong.
          • readittwice 9y ago
    • karllager 9y ago
      Gini coefficient is the among the highest in Europe, about 0.76. About ten years ago, a neoliberal shift loosened labor laws and saved the overall economy by letting less skilled workers not get unemployed, just take a pay cut (what France is trying to push now against a lot of protests, since government realized, the global party is over). Wages in Germany stagnated as well, domestic trade is dwarfed by export. Living has gotten much more expensive in the cities continuously moving the shrinking middle class further down. Germany has a track record of being strong enough, so that revolutions seldom happen. But if they happen, the are almost guaranteed to be catastrophic.
      • agumonkey 9y ago
        In France it's not seen as an altruist idea but as a favor to the company heads, risking too many unhealthy balance in the employee / employer relationships. An opportunity for more wild Uber management scheme in a way. When Germans talk about this idea in their country, it seems a good idea that I would back right away. But somehow nobody trusts French CEOs not to profit too much from the new flexibility.
  • jojoo 9y ago
    As a member of the German Education and Science Union i have to strongly disagree. Germany is becoming a low income country for a lot of jobs and the unions are doing nothing against it. Year after year all German workers have collective bargaining agreements close to inflation, while the economy booms. The union-reps are in bed with the companys and workers eat it up.
    • usrusr 9y ago
      Oh, unions are fighting for workers, just not very successful. They can lower the impact of market forces, but they cannot negate them. Who they are notoriously not fighting for is temp workers and future temp workers who have it much worse than barely matching inflation. Darkly logical, temps are not members.
    • karllager 9y ago
      > Germany is becoming a low income country for a lot of jobs and the unions are doing nothing against it. Yes, this is true. About 39% of the currently employed have so called atypical jobs [1] - some of which are actually subsidized by the state, because income is so low. Germany is an austerity poster child - I wonder what will happen, if the export boom is over. Things might become much worse, once the debt-financed foreign purchases dry up for some reason. [1] https://www.boeckler.de/108863_108907.htm https://www.boeckler.de/108863_108907.htm (German only).
      • lucaspiller 9y ago
        It sounds like Germany is just catching up with the rest of Europe.
    • adventured 9y ago
      Where are you seeing that the German economy is booming? It hasn't net expanded in ten years. GDP 2007: $3.44 trillion vs 2016: $3.46 trillion It has been averaging around 1.5% GDP growth since 2011. That is not booming. Germany may finally climb above the pre great recession era GDP numbers in 2017. Germany is having the problems that it is, precisely due to the lack of meaningful economic growth. There's no scenario where you're going to see almost any wage growth if GDP is mired in 0.5% to 1.5% type expansion; to make matters worse, the next recession will easily swat the recent modest gains right back down (which is one of the many reasons faster growth is a must, inevitably a recession will occur).
  • jernfrost 9y ago
    Works the same in Norway, but it is not because US/UK unions are so badly behaved. They behave as the anti-union system in the UK and US have made them act. Unions in Germany and Scandinavia work because they got considerable power and are represented on the company boards. That means they learn to take responsibilty by being given considerable responsibility and power. Unions in the US and the UK are not given any trust or power but instead are fought and sabotaged at every opportunity. This is what has made them a reactionary force dealing with management as the enemy.
  • _pmf_ 9y ago
    > it was the Unions that helped dealing with convincing the workers to accept shorter shifts and salaries Schröder paved the way for the Arbeitnehmerüberlassung, which causes a massive rise in time restricted contracts and external workforce. Unions are very happy to keep this going, as this keeps salaries for proper employees higher than ever (a 20000 EUR difference is not uncommon for the same job), and bonus payments that amount to 10000 EUR for Porsche and 6000 EUR for Daimler. For the growing number of employees working under these contracts, it amounts to having a 30 to 40 per cent lower salary to your colleague who works beside you, doing the same job. (Add to that the constant yapping of the SPD regarding a perceived gender based wage gap and you know why they are so detested in large parts of the population.)
• wiz21c 9y ago
  It is not admirable at all. It basically means that you're putting a competition between machines and humans. If machines do become smarter, then humans will be moved out of the equation (except for the 0.001% who can create and maintain the machines). This kind of fight may be good on the short term, but it legitimates the fact than man are inferior to machine. For example, it may soon legitimates that, contrary to man, the machine works non stop, doesn't go on strike, doesn't want a raise, doesn't go to the toilet, whatever... If machines are to rule, then we have to change the way we redistribute the worth they produce.
  • damnstraight 9y ago
    Maybe we should value humans beyond the labor they can fulfill.
    • thephyber 9y ago
      We already do, it's just not anywhere close to evenly distributed. Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton did no actual work, yet made a lucrative living, even in their late teens. Almost everyone has personal family+friends that they value in ways other than needing their labor. But it doesn't scale. People have a Dunbar number of somewhere a little (perhaps a lot) over ~140, but nowhere near a nation-state population.
  • avar 9y ago
    Men are also inferior to machines when it comes to farm work, but judging from your comment you'd presumably like to go back to the good old days when over 50% of the population worked on farms.
    • richthegeek 9y ago
      Or the really good old days when 97% worked in agriculture...
      • usrusr 9y ago
        Only in times of peace. (To nitpick on myself, it could be argued that war campaigns were also mostly agricultural work: they were just harvesting other people's fields)
• Mikeb85 9y ago
  That's not a good thing. If we want society to be more equal, funnelling money to capital holders at the expense of workers isn't the way to accomplish that goal.
• matt4077 9y ago
  At the core of the comparatively good relationships between labor and capital in Germany is the law requiring labor representation of 50% - one vote on large companies' boards. This results in a complicated role for both sides that isn't just adversarial as it is in most other countries. Labor shares the responsibility for the company's future and gets to be part of every step of the process when it comes to making hard decisions. But it also requires management to strive to improve their employees' well-being, since they will often require their cooperation. If these specific solutions are anything but band-aids/wishful thinking/PR remains to be seen. Germany has, just like all other countries, seen an increased use of time-limited contracts and temp agencies, leaving many employees in perpetual danger of immediate social decline if the economy hits a road bump. And it isn't quite clear if the rise of machine learning + robotics isn't the one innovation and bucks the trend, and actually does create a class of people that is essentially shut out of the jobs market by machines that are strictly more productive at any job they can realistically perform: there's only so much programming you can teach a bricklayer in his 50s.