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In part the lower firing rate can be explained by other means, unions do try to work with companies when they're in a financial crisis (for example instead of f

by zaarn 8y ago

In part the lower firing rate can be explained by other means, unions do try to work with companies when they're in a financial crisis (for example instead of firing people, they'd reduce working hours). That's sort of the point of a union really; give workers better leverage to work with the company to ensure they'll keep their jobs and have fair wages and compensations+benefits. Of course, you'll get freeloaders but I'd argue that this is a price worth paying for because the workers benefit a lot and the company can benefit a lot too. Plus, this isn't the point either, teachers and cops aren't hard to fire because of unions. They are civil servants, they can't negotiate their wages via unions or even strike. They also lack a number of other rights. However, they are also incredibly hard to fire if they didn't commit serious crimes or felonies, otherwise they hold their job for life. So teachers and cops in germany have little to nothing to do with unions when it comes to being hard to fire.

AmericanChopper 8y ago
>In part the lower firing rate can be explained by other means, unions do try to work with companies when they're in a financial crisis The study was of dismissal rates, not redundancies. So none of the 50% reduction found in dismissals can be explained by redundancies. Your speculation about cops and teachers is also irrelevant, as the data very convincingly shows that it’s much harder and more expensive to fire union members.
- zaarn 8y ago
  >The study was of dismissal rates, not redundancies. So none of the 50% reduction found in dismissals can be explained by redundancies. The paper you linked specifically points out that unions reduce employee turnover, as mentioned because unions do try to work with companies, and as mentioned, try to keep workers employed. This fully explains a lower turnover rate. The paper however doesn't really go deep into that territory so I'm afraid you can't simply say that the explanation is invalid. Specifically the paper mentions "Our data does not allow us to explicitly test for the channel by which individual trade union membership alters dismissal probabilities." So again, saying the paper finds that redundancy can't explain the reduction is simply incorrect. >Your speculation about cops and teachers is also irrelevant, It's not speculation, it's german employment and civil servant law, but thanks anyway. I'm merely raising the point that using teachers and cops are bad examples considering they don't have unions here.
  - AmericanChopper 8y ago
    >The paper you linked specifically points out that unions reduce employee turnover, as mentioned because unions do try to work with companies, and as mentioned, try to keep workers employed. It actually sites union representation in labor court as a key factor: >German employment protection legislation gives workers the entitlement to contest a dismissal at a labour court. Trade unions generally support their members in such legal conflicts. According to a recent survey, 12% of all union members have been represented by their union in court and almost 50% have obtained legal advice from union staff at least once during their membership. Furthermore, in 2008 for example, the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) represented union members in more than 70,000 proceedings in labour courts, of which about 26,000 were directly related to dismissal conflicts.21 In addition, we know that the probability of obtaining a severance payment will be higher if a labour court is involved >This fully explains a lower turnover rate. Again, the paper is not about turnover rate or redundancy as you keep saying, it’s about dismissals: >The differences in the dismissal rates are striking: the raw dismissal rate of non-members amounts to about 3.6% and is almost three times as high as that of union members in sample I. It is still more than twice the dismissal rate of non-members in sample II, which covers the longer time span. >saying the paper finds that redundancy can't explain the reduction is simply incorrect. It seems you didn’t read the paper: >A key advantage of the SOEP data is that information on the type of job termination is available. Since 1985, respondents have been asked to classify their job termination from a list of items, such as "fired by the employer", "quit on one's own", "time-limited work contract", "apprenticeship had been completed", "entering pre-retirement programme" or "other reasons". The items "fired by the employer" and "quit on one's own" are included in every wave of the SOEP. Some of the other reasons have been included irregularly and additional types of job separations, such as "plant closed", have been added later on. This last item has been sporadically included in questionnaires since 1991. Furthermore, multiple answers were allowed only until 1998. Since we are concerned with whether union membership is associated with a reduced risk of being individually dismissed, we focus on "fired by the employer" as the self-reported reason for a job termination. The fact is plain as day, union membership makes it harder and more costly to fire bad employees. You can think it’s worth it if you like, but there’s no way to deny it. It’s also worth noting that this cost isn’t taken by the employer, but by the employee. As they all have collective contracts, the wages fleeced by low productivity employees are simply made up by higher productivity employees.

by zaarn 8y ago

AmericanChopper 8y ago

>In part the lower firing rate can be explained by other means, unions do try to work with companies when they're in a financial crisis The study was of dismissal rates, not redundancies. So none of the 50% reduction found in dismissals can be explained by redundancies. Your speculation about cops and teachers is also irrelevant, as the data very convincingly shows that it’s much harder and more expensive to fire union members.

zaarn 8y ago
>The study was of dismissal rates, not redundancies. So none of the 50% reduction found in dismissals can be explained by redundancies. The paper you linked specifically points out that unions reduce employee turnover, as mentioned because unions do try to work with companies, and as mentioned, try to keep workers employed. This fully explains a lower turnover rate. The paper however doesn't really go deep into that territory so I'm afraid you can't simply say that the explanation is invalid. Specifically the paper mentions "Our data does not allow us to explicitly test for the channel by which individual trade union membership alters dismissal probabilities." So again, saying the paper finds that redundancy can't explain the reduction is simply incorrect. >Your speculation about cops and teachers is also irrelevant, It's not speculation, it's german employment and civil servant law, but thanks anyway. I'm merely raising the point that using teachers and cops are bad examples considering they don't have unions here.
- AmericanChopper 8y ago
  >The paper you linked specifically points out that unions reduce employee turnover, as mentioned because unions do try to work with companies, and as mentioned, try to keep workers employed. It actually sites union representation in labor court as a key factor: >German employment protection legislation gives workers the entitlement to contest a dismissal at a labour court. Trade unions generally support their members in such legal conflicts. According to a recent survey, 12% of all union members have been represented by their union in court and almost 50% have obtained legal advice from union staff at least once during their membership. Furthermore, in 2008 for example, the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) represented union members in more than 70,000 proceedings in labour courts, of which about 26,000 were directly related to dismissal conflicts.21 In addition, we know that the probability of obtaining a severance payment will be higher if a labour court is involved >This fully explains a lower turnover rate. Again, the paper is not about turnover rate or redundancy as you keep saying, it’s about dismissals: >The differences in the dismissal rates are striking: the raw dismissal rate of non-members amounts to about 3.6% and is almost three times as high as that of union members in sample I. It is still more than twice the dismissal rate of non-members in sample II, which covers the longer time span. >saying the paper finds that redundancy can't explain the reduction is simply incorrect. It seems you didn’t read the paper: >A key advantage of the SOEP data is that information on the type of job termination is available. Since 1985, respondents have been asked to classify their job termination from a list of items, such as "fired by the employer", "quit on one's own", "time-limited work contract", "apprenticeship had been completed", "entering pre-retirement programme" or "other reasons". The items "fired by the employer" and "quit on one's own" are included in every wave of the SOEP. Some of the other reasons have been included irregularly and additional types of job separations, such as "plant closed", have been added later on. This last item has been sporadically included in questionnaires since 1991. Furthermore, multiple answers were allowed only until 1998. Since we are concerned with whether union membership is associated with a reduced risk of being individually dismissed, we focus on "fired by the employer" as the self-reported reason for a job termination. The fact is plain as day, union membership makes it harder and more costly to fire bad employees. You can think it’s worth it if you like, but there’s no way to deny it. It’s also worth noting that this cost isn’t taken by the employer, but by the employee. As they all have collective contracts, the wages fleeced by low productivity employees are simply made up by higher productivity employees.