4 ms·

Funny, Swedish outsourcing centers in CE Europe don't have councils. They just pay half of Swedish salary, demand obedience, and fire at will. Job counseling th

Funny, Swedish outsourcing centers in CE Europe don't have councils. They just pay half of Swedish salary, demand obedience, and fire at will. Job counseling those laid off? No such thing. Someone has to work for and pay for their luxurious conditions back home. You're welcome, Swedes - hope you'll choke on your redundancy packages.

walshemj 9y ago
Yes a lot of European companies that behave well at home behave badly overseas I know of one that artificially bankrupted a uk subsidiary to avoid paying the statutory redundancy payments. They called every one to a meeting said where bankrupt you don't have a job and there's a pile of RB2 forms over there. Th Rb2 form is to claim the much reduced redundancy payment from the state, when the parent company could have paid the statutory redundancy out of petty cash
- TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
  This is why worker protection laws are so important. All big companies will behave sociopathically in order to maximize profits. It's only through government regulation that such anti-worker behavior can be limited and controlled.
  - ploxiln 9y ago
    This is why worker protection laws are so dumb. You just can't force other people to give other people money, they'll always find a way not to. Worst case they'll just practically never hire people in your country. So those people are desperate to get into another country without those worker protections, e.g. US or UK or NZ, so they can get a job and make some money. This is happening in France, Italy, Spain, etc.
    - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
      Sounds more like that's a side effect of globalization. When other countries can provide more labor for less cost, it leads to a race to the bottom to see what country can provide the lowest wages, thus decreasing the quality of life for workers. I understand that return on investment is important, but corporate profits are overall higher than they have ever been before. When is enough enough? When should we start to again prioritize the quality of life of our workers? edit: To those downvoting me, could you please explain the flaw in my logic? I don't see what's wrong or inaccurate with either of my comments.
      - arvinjoar 9y ago
        When is enough enough? No-one gets to say. For better or for worse, a race to the bottom is a coordination problem where the incentive is always to be the defecting party. This means that however well-intentioned you are, global capitalism marches on without you, your choice is to jump on the bandwagon or become irrelevant. Politics doesn't matter much, it can only stall the inevitable, usually at great cost.
        TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
        > When is enough enough? No-one gets to say. Yet we do get to say. A big cause of the political instability in the US is due to increasing inequality and a declining quality of life for much of the country. If such economic forces cause protectionist legislation to be passed, isn't that the people getting a say? Also, the idea that you must jump on the global capitalist bandwagon to remain relevant is odd to me. Is being an economic powerhouse the only factor in a country's relevance?
        justin_vanw 9y ago
        What political instability in the US? Please define what you mean by instability, the US has been the most stable national government since it was founded, with a big exception of the Civil War of course. Even then, compare it to the governments of any continental European or Asian or African nation that isn't part of the British Commonwealth, and we have had a stable democracy while basically every single non-commonwealth government has gone through collapse, been reformed, and collapsed again in the meantime. I mean it's easy to say 'inequality' as some kind of Marxist trump card that you think automatically ends all possible debate, but meanwhile things in the US are fine. Fine != Perfect, of course, but it is yet to be demonstrated that you can have a socialist/market capitalist welfare state that functions outside of the Nordic countries. Every other attempt at it has been a complete disaster.
devdad 9y ago
I agree with the sentiment - but it's not the workers nor the union that's responsible for those shitty conditions. Also, when companies in Sweden hire workers from other countries at lower pay, the unions will protest. And try to raise the newly hired non-Swede's wage to the Swedish standard.
- expertentipp 9y ago
  The same people, the same companies treat employees as disposable assets if they only smell they can do it without consequences... and they do it - on the same continent, only couple hundreds kilometers away.
  - devdad 9y ago
    I don't disagree. Just saying that you seem to mix what's created by the Swedish unions to protect the workers, with the corporate decision to move production where it's easier to exploit workers. So not the same people. The union has no saying in this and would most certainly condemn treating workers as disposable assets.
taway_1212 9y ago
Well, that’s the reason a large Scandinavian company I work for is moving a lot of its massive IT to Central Europe. As for firing at will, it’s not neccessarily easy or cheap to fire someone in CE as well.
jernfrost 9y ago
You seem to misunderstand. These things don't exist in Nordic countries because companies decided to be nice. They exist because large powerful unions and cooperative governments pushed them to it. You can't sit back and wait for companies to behave. You got to push for political change in your country. Strong unions combined with laws protecting them is one way of making sure companies play by the rules. I can tell the same story about foreign workers in Norway. We got lots of polish and other eastern European workers to the Norwegian construction industry. These workers were treated much worse than Norwegian workers because they 1) didn't know their rights 2) were not union members. After concerted efforts by the Norwegian unions to inform eastern European workers, create information material in polish etc, then conditions started improving a lot. It is not an accident that Nordic workplaces are quite nice and the unionization rate is close to 80%.

walshemj 9y ago

Yes a lot of European companies that behave well at home behave badly overseas I know of one that artificially bankrupted a uk subsidiary to avoid paying the statutory redundancy payments. They called every one to a meeting said where bankrupt you don't have a job and there's a pile of RB2 forms over there. Th Rb2 form is to claim the much reduced redundancy payment from the state, when the parent company could have paid the statutory redundancy out of petty cash

TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
This is why worker protection laws are so important. All big companies will behave sociopathically in order to maximize profits. It's only through government regulation that such anti-worker behavior can be limited and controlled.
- ploxiln 9y ago
  This is why worker protection laws are so dumb. You just can't force other people to give other people money, they'll always find a way not to. Worst case they'll just practically never hire people in your country. So those people are desperate to get into another country without those worker protections, e.g. US or UK or NZ, so they can get a job and make some money. This is happening in France, Italy, Spain, etc.
  - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
    Sounds more like that's a side effect of globalization. When other countries can provide more labor for less cost, it leads to a race to the bottom to see what country can provide the lowest wages, thus decreasing the quality of life for workers. I understand that return on investment is important, but corporate profits are overall higher than they have ever been before. When is enough enough? When should we start to again prioritize the quality of life of our workers? edit: To those downvoting me, could you please explain the flaw in my logic? I don't see what's wrong or inaccurate with either of my comments.
    - arvinjoar 9y ago
      When is enough enough? No-one gets to say. For better or for worse, a race to the bottom is a coordination problem where the incentive is always to be the defecting party. This means that however well-intentioned you are, global capitalism marches on without you, your choice is to jump on the bandwagon or become irrelevant. Politics doesn't matter much, it can only stall the inevitable, usually at great cost.
      - TheAdamAndChe 9y ago
        > When is enough enough? No-one gets to say. Yet we do get to say. A big cause of the political instability in the US is due to increasing inequality and a declining quality of life for much of the country. If such economic forces cause protectionist legislation to be passed, isn't that the people getting a say? Also, the idea that you must jump on the global capitalist bandwagon to remain relevant is odd to me. Is being an economic powerhouse the only factor in a country's relevance?
        justin_vanw 9y ago
        What political instability in the US? Please define what you mean by instability, the US has been the most stable national government since it was founded, with a big exception of the Civil War of course. Even then, compare it to the governments of any continental European or Asian or African nation that isn't part of the British Commonwealth, and we have had a stable democracy while basically every single non-commonwealth government has gone through collapse, been reformed, and collapsed again in the meantime. I mean it's easy to say 'inequality' as some kind of Marxist trump card that you think automatically ends all possible debate, but meanwhile things in the US are fine. Fine != Perfect, of course, but it is yet to be demonstrated that you can have a socialist/market capitalist welfare state that functions outside of the Nordic countries. Every other attempt at it has been a complete disaster.

devdad 9y ago

I agree with the sentiment - but it's not the workers nor the union that's responsible for those shitty conditions. Also, when companies in Sweden hire workers from other countries at lower pay, the unions will protest. And try to raise the newly hired non-Swede's wage to the Swedish standard.

expertentipp 9y ago
The same people, the same companies treat employees as disposable assets if they only smell they can do it without consequences... and they do it - on the same continent, only couple hundreds kilometers away.
- devdad 9y ago
  I don't disagree. Just saying that you seem to mix what's created by the Swedish unions to protect the workers, with the corporate decision to move production where it's easier to exploit workers. So not the same people. The union has no saying in this and would most certainly condemn treating workers as disposable assets.

taway_1212 9y ago

Well, that’s the reason a large Scandinavian company I work for is moving a lot of its massive IT to Central Europe. As for firing at will, it’s not neccessarily easy or cheap to fire someone in CE as well.

jernfrost 9y ago

You seem to misunderstand. These things don't exist in Nordic countries because companies decided to be nice. They exist because large powerful unions and cooperative governments pushed them to it. You can't sit back and wait for companies to behave. You got to push for political change in your country. Strong unions combined with laws protecting them is one way of making sure companies play by the rules. I can tell the same story about foreign workers in Norway. We got lots of polish and other eastern European workers to the Norwegian construction industry. These workers were treated much worse than Norwegian workers because they 1) didn't know their rights 2) were not union members. After concerted efforts by the Norwegian unions to inform eastern European workers, create information material in polish etc, then conditions started improving a lot. It is not an accident that Nordic workplaces are quite nice and the unionization rate is close to 80%.