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The works council system in Germany and Switzerland (and some other countries) works a lot better than American unions. I'm not sure why. It seems they are more

The works council system in Germany and Switzerland (and some other countries) works a lot better than American unions. I'm not sure why. It seems they are more co-operative and have fewer BS rules.

nickff 5y ago
I am not an expert on German unions, but I think one key factor is that German unions tend to have company-level decision-making and representation. In the USA, it is common for unions to be industry-wide, with little or no significant company-level decision-making authority. These monolithic unions strike at one company or another according to what will most benefit the rest of the union. This means that the union is 'attacking' one company, and helping their competitors, subsidizing the costs to members at that company with money earned by members from the competitors. This is something like blackmail, and is bound to cause animosity with management.
- rb2k_ 5y ago
  > In the USA, it is common for unions to be industry-wide A lot of the ones in Germany are as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trade_unions_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trade_unions_in_German...
  - nickff 5y ago
    Yes, I've read about that, but it seems like those unions give each branch/local/company significant independent decision-making authority, which is uncommon in top-down US unions.
GuB-42 5y ago
The biggest reason is that in Germany, unions actually take part in decisions. It means that in addition to representing workers they take the company interests into account, after all, employees can't be paid if the company doesn't make money. In other countries they can only protest and so, they work by opposing management instead of trying to find a solution that suits everyone.
tibbetts 5y ago
Not starting out adversarial with management is a big part of it. Unions in the US feel like they need to have strict rules because otherwise management will take advantage. Management in the US is often very strongly anti-union. This is a situation where social conventions and government regulation could yield better outcomes than an adversarial system. But Americans love adversarial systems.
- Kinrany 5y ago
  Why is being adversarial a problem?
  - spoonjim 5y ago
    Adversarial expectations shift games to zero sum that don't have to be.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    Because going into a negotiation with a belief that both parties are expected to be reasonable and negotiate in good faith tends to give you better outcomes.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      Whenever I buy nearly anything negotiated (car, house, boat, large software license, other business deal), I simultaneously expect both parties to be reasonable and negotiate in good faith, yet all of those single-trial negotiations are entirely adversarial. It seems perfectly reasonable and fairly efficient to me.
      - dhosek 5y ago
        I've not done a lot of negotiated purchases other than cars, and car salesmen are notorious for negotiating out of bad faith.
      - kennywinker 5y ago
        Think prisoners dilemma. A car /house/boat purchase is basically a one-off interaction - you’re not likely to be dealing with the same salesperson in 5-15 years when you buy your next car - so the strategy both parties should use is different from the strategy when it’s going to be frequent repeated interactions as in a workplace.
mdoms 5y ago
A lot of Americans tend to believe that American culture and human nature are the same thing. That humans are irredeemably selfish, and that cooperation can only occur as an emergent property of pure selfishness and greed. Those of us who live in more cooperative cultures know this to be false.
- xyzelement 5y ago
  > Those of us who live in more cooperative cultures know this to be false. How does your culture "motivate" those who aren't interested in cooperating the way you'd want them to? Gulag?
  - mdoms 5y ago
    Yeah all those gulags we have in New Zealand.
vmception 5y ago
Yeah because it is required for them to be on the boards of the big companies too. The US should play around with board composition from both the legislation side, as well as a consequence for all fines and settlements and court orders.
outside1234 5y ago
I don't know about that. We had a German employee who sexually harassed multiple people and it was the work council that basically made it impossible to fire him.
- humaniania 5y ago
  Anonymous anecdote on the internet vs objective statistical measurements that prove overall efficiency?
inter_netuser 5y ago
Because nearly everyone in Germany is in some sort of union. Entirely different climate, sort of like life-long employment culture in Japan.
- adsche 5y ago
  > Because nearly everyone in Germany is in some sort of union. This is not true. DGB (comprising most unions and all major ones) reported less than 6M members last year [1] out of ~45M working population total or ~34M of dependently employed people [2]. A lot of people might end up benefiting from a union due to them often negotiating contracts for whole occupational groups, but they are not members. [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/5837/umfrage/mitgliederzahlen-der-gewerkschaften/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/5837/umfrage/... [2] https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Arbeitsmarkt/Erwerbstaetigkeit/_inhalt.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Arbeitsmarkt/Erwerb...
antattack 5y ago
One big failing of American worker unions (not all but increasing in numbers) was when they agreed to two-tier systems for pay and benefits. Such unions basically compromised new hires benefits and pay to continue high pay and benefits for tenured union workers.
wjnc 5y ago
A little tidbit is that unions in the Netherlands usually bargain for all employees, while that isn’t the case in the US in my understanding? You still get a few little union bonuses (like employers paying union fees) and bargaining by unions pre-disposed to their (usually older) membership. But all in all unions bargain for everyone, not just their members.

The works council system in Germany and Switzerland (and some other countries) works a lot better than American unions. I'm not sure why. It seems they are more co-operative and have fewer BS rules.

nickff 5y ago

I am not an expert on German unions, but I think one key factor is that German unions tend to have company-level decision-making and representation. In the USA, it is common for unions to be industry-wide, with little or no significant company-level decision-making authority. These monolithic unions strike at one company or another according to what will most benefit the rest of the union. This means that the union is 'attacking' one company, and helping their competitors, subsidizing the costs to members at that company with money earned by members from the competitors. This is something like blackmail, and is bound to cause animosity with management.

rb2k_ 5y ago
> In the USA, it is common for unions to be industry-wide A lot of the ones in Germany are as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trade_unions_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trade_unions_in_German...
- nickff 5y ago
  Yes, I've read about that, but it seems like those unions give each branch/local/company significant independent decision-making authority, which is uncommon in top-down US unions.

GuB-42 5y ago

The biggest reason is that in Germany, unions actually take part in decisions. It means that in addition to representing workers they take the company interests into account, after all, employees can't be paid if the company doesn't make money. In other countries they can only protest and so, they work by opposing management instead of trying to find a solution that suits everyone.

tibbetts 5y ago

Not starting out adversarial with management is a big part of it. Unions in the US feel like they need to have strict rules because otherwise management will take advantage. Management in the US is often very strongly anti-union. This is a situation where social conventions and government regulation could yield better outcomes than an adversarial system. But Americans love adversarial systems.

Kinrany 5y ago
Why is being adversarial a problem?
- spoonjim 5y ago
  Adversarial expectations shift games to zero sum that don't have to be.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Because going into a negotiation with a belief that both parties are expected to be reasonable and negotiate in good faith tends to give you better outcomes.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    Whenever I buy nearly anything negotiated (car, house, boat, large software license, other business deal), I simultaneously expect both parties to be reasonable and negotiate in good faith, yet all of those single-trial negotiations are entirely adversarial. It seems perfectly reasonable and fairly efficient to me.
    - dhosek 5y ago
      I've not done a lot of negotiated purchases other than cars, and car salesmen are notorious for negotiating out of bad faith.
    - kennywinker 5y ago
      Think prisoners dilemma. A car /house/boat purchase is basically a one-off interaction - you’re not likely to be dealing with the same salesperson in 5-15 years when you buy your next car - so the strategy both parties should use is different from the strategy when it’s going to be frequent repeated interactions as in a workplace.

mdoms 5y ago

A lot of Americans tend to believe that American culture and human nature are the same thing. That humans are irredeemably selfish, and that cooperation can only occur as an emergent property of pure selfishness and greed. Those of us who live in more cooperative cultures know this to be false.

xyzelement 5y ago
> Those of us who live in more cooperative cultures know this to be false. How does your culture "motivate" those who aren't interested in cooperating the way you'd want them to? Gulag?
- mdoms 5y ago
  Yeah all those gulags we have in New Zealand.

vmception 5y ago

Yeah because it is required for them to be on the boards of the big companies too. The US should play around with board composition from both the legislation side, as well as a consequence for all fines and settlements and court orders.

outside1234 5y ago

I don't know about that. We had a German employee who sexually harassed multiple people and it was the work council that basically made it impossible to fire him.

humaniania 5y ago
Anonymous anecdote on the internet vs objective statistical measurements that prove overall efficiency?

inter_netuser 5y ago

Because nearly everyone in Germany is in some sort of union. Entirely different climate, sort of like life-long employment culture in Japan.

adsche 5y ago
> Because nearly everyone in Germany is in some sort of union. This is not true. DGB (comprising most unions and all major ones) reported less than 6M members last year [1] out of ~45M working population total or ~34M of dependently employed people [2]. A lot of people might end up benefiting from a union due to them often negotiating contracts for whole occupational groups, but they are not members. [1] https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/5837/umfrage/mitgliederzahlen-der-gewerkschaften/ https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/5837/umfrage/... [2] https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Arbeitsmarkt/Erwerbstaetigkeit/_inhalt.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Arbeit/Arbeitsmarkt/Erwerb...

antattack 5y ago

One big failing of American worker unions (not all but increasing in numbers) was when they agreed to two-tier systems for pay and benefits. Such unions basically compromised new hires benefits and pay to continue high pay and benefits for tenured union workers.

wjnc 5y ago

A little tidbit is that unions in the Netherlands usually bargain for all employees, while that isn’t the case in the US in my understanding? You still get a few little union bonuses (like employers paying union fees) and bargaining by unions pre-disposed to their (usually older) membership. But all in all unions bargain for everyone, not just their members.