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When McDonalds Came to Denmark
- wodenokoto 5y ago> Truckers refused to deliver food and beer to McDonalds. I like how the author snuck in the fact that McDonald's used to sell beer. I believe they still do in Germany - at least it used to be a fact that would regularly find its way onto reddits frontpage.
- matzab 5y agoSome still do (it's up to the franchisee iirc) but it's not easy to enjoy a beer from one of those McDonald's paper cups.
- oarsinsync 5y agoThankfully they use plastic cups for beer in some regions.
- rm445 5y agoFrance too. It's a shame to eat McDonald's in a country with so much great food, of course, but getting a burger covered in blue cheese served with a beer is a bit better than the standard experience.
- rat9988 5y agoNo shame in it. If you like their burgers eat them.
- 4gotunameagain 5y agoI'm up for shame as a societal mechanism to limit McDonalds and similar junk food consumption.
- Invictus0 5y agoWhat other people choose to eat is really none of your business.
- pjerem 5y agoWell, it depends if I (or the society) have to suffer from the externalities of what they eat. But that's another topic.
- The_Colonel 5y agoAre marginal externalities from eating at MacDonalds higher than from a random other burger place?
- pjerem 5y agoI don’t know
- pjc50 5y agoSimilar story of the development there too: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mcdonalds-conquered-france-2014-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-mcdonalds-conquered-fran...
- tasogare 5y agoThe real shame is you can't eat a meal anywhere anymorefor 5€ except at McDonalds.
- joefife 5y agoThey do in Spain too. You can even buy gluten free beer in McDonald's in some parts of Spain. Here in Scotland the soft drink Irn Bru is served, as this is more popular than Coca Cola.
- dotancohen 5y agoDo you know what they call a quarter pounder in Europe?
- ceejayoz 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_Pounder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_Pounder > In several countries that do not customarily use United States customary units as a unit of weight, the Quarter Pounder is sold under different names. In France, Belgium and Cyprus it is called the Royal Cheese and includes cheese. In German-speaking Europe it is known as a Hamburger Royal; in Germany it includes lettuce and tomato and is branded Hamburger Royal TS (TS standing for „Tomate und Salat“, tomato and lettuce). In Russia and Ukraine, it was known as Royal Cheeseburger, and since 2016 in Russia it is called Grand Cheeseburger.
- jonfromsf 5y agoCheck out the big brain on Brad over here!
- edoceo 5y agoNot everyone is following the Pulp Fiction joke.
- SkeuomorphicBee 5y agoSome more random trivia: In Brazil it is known as "Quarteirão" which I find an ingenious translation. The word actually means "city block", but it is quite close to the original name, and being an augmentative ("-ão" suffix means big/large) it passes the intended message of a big burger. Extra random trivia: in the south of Brazil, burgers are traditionally very large, so McDonald's Quarteirão (Quarter Pounder) is actually considered a small burger.
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- jollybean 5y agoThe article indicates various unions did adjacent strikes until McDonald's set their pay to $22/h. I'm not sure how hugely helpful this is without considering all of the knock on effects and what all of that means. We could demand $50/h for them as well or otherwise demand that everyone in the country have the same pay. It would be better if someone could make the case for some kind of net gain in having such prices fixed at any given place.
- hjorthjort 5y agoThat's exactly what unions do. They consider what a reasonable salary for their members are, usually in long and meticulous negotiations with the employers. They are not idiots. They know that if you drive labor prices too high then there are fewer jobs to go around. It's about striking a balance where businesses get to be profitable and expansive, while some of that gets redistributed to workers. The reason that we don't want the government to set minimum wages and benefits is because that's too crude a tool. The best trade-offs, sacrifices and share of spoils varies, and having the unions of different sectors negotiate with the employers (themselves usually organized in unions) is that you can optimize a lot more so that everyone wins.
- yxwvut 5y agoUnions have an incumbency problem in which, yes, they're concerned with the effects of pushing too hard, but only insofar as it affects their existing members. See also: significantly tenure-based pay scales for unskilled labor.
- doikor 5y agoThe contracts the unions negotiate in the nordics apply to everyone in the sector. So it makes no difference whatsoever for the pay of anyone if they are a union member or not. The main benefits of being part of an union here is stuff like union lawyer being made available to you if you have a dispute with your employer. And obviously more voice in who will represent you in the negotiations between the government, employers and employees.
- nanis 5y ago> They pay high wages because back in the 1980s, Danish unions flipped a switch and turned the whole business off, and McDonalds doesn’t want to find out whether they would do it again. > This is where we need to get to. A true champagne socialist.
- heurisko 5y agoIt has nothing to do with "champagne socialism". The high wages were accomplished by cooperation between working people who had organised themselves into trade unions.
- nanis 5y ago> It has nothing to do with "champagne socialism" ... The author, who does not seem to have come within a thousand miles of any other work than armchair pontification, is one for thinking it'd be great to have such labor unions everywhere. A gallon of gasoline in Denmark $7.60. Sales tax in Denmark 25%. I love Denmark but I am also familiar with what small business in Denmark have to put up with to survive.
- _hilro 5y agoI think the domain and author need to be contextualised. Regardless of everything else, this isn't just a non political author writing an interesting story. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Bruenig https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matt_Bruenig
- user-the-name 5y agoWhat on earth would make you think it was "just a non political author writing an interesting story"? No part of it is framed as such.
- krageon 5y agoIf you have a point to make you should make it. I have no idea who this is (or why what is on his wikipedia is relevant) and I don't know what you mean with (what I assume is euphemistically stated) "contextualised".
- pjc50 5y agoIt's a pro-union article, I think most people can realise that by reading it and decide for themselves whether they support or oppose it.
- tejohnso 5y agoSo we should judge the author's personal life and political leanings and history, rather than assessing the content on its own merit? Is that what you mean by contextualizing the domain and author? I think the article stands pretty well on its own.
- typon 5y agoIs there any author of any article who does need to be "contextualized" by your standards? Are there authors out there that exist outside of a context?
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoNot where we need to get to. A segment of the population is overriding the government in Denmark. That's a 'shadow government' and seems very wrong. If you want the wages to be reasonable, then the government should take action to make it so. Not a private organization, by essentially extorting the public.
- hjorthjort 5y agoJoining the union is voluntary. It's simply a way of coordinating action. And strikes are well within the legal rights of workers -- it's the way the system is designed to work, bit a fluke. This article just points out how a system like that may actually be effective.
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago...when they are allowed to do strikes in other industries, which is the extortion part.
- emilgouliev 5y agoWhy are you okay with sectoral bargaining on the employer side but not on the employee side?
- elzbardico 5y agoShouldn't a government represent the people? So, why things are ok if done by elected officials, but not by the people themselves?
- gumby 5y agoI am sympathetic to your position but consider a counter theory: not everybody can agree, but perhaps they can agree to have a group of people make a reasonable decision, hopefully after asking for and getting good advice. So what should the speed limit be? I don’t really know but they probably aren’t far off given the way the roads are built, people’s reaction times etc. Plus I know they have some people who have studied unexpected factors (e.g. too many stop signs cause speeding). Such a system is hardly guaranteed to be “right” but is supposed to be alterable and easier to live with than people whipsawing the decision. BTW in the case of speed limits: during a burst of sensible lawmaking, California set speed limits but also modulated them with the idea that people are sensible: if the speed limit on a road is set to 25, but the dominant traffic is at 35, the presumption is that the proper limit is actually 35.
- jefc1111 5y agoIt's like Tesco all over again [NSFW swearing] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfSi0D7KESk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfSi0D7KESk
- bckygldstn 5y agoA similar thing happened when Toys R Us came to Sweden: https://apnews.com/article/6d245065b3faaadc70e6eb77e3e5c20f https://apnews.com/article/6d245065b3faaadc70e6eb77e3e5c20f
- anonchan 5y agoIf a company did that, they'd be struck down for antitrust and abuse of power. That this is celebrated is a double standard.
- kalleboo 5y agoWhen companies do that, it's waved away with "it's their right". Just look at stuff like the iOS App Store, Microsoft Antitrust case, etc. When was the last time there were any actual consequences for the actions of a large corporation?
- burkaman 5y agoIt's not a double standard, it's one standard for a corporation and a different standard for a labor union, because those are different types of organizations.
- standardUser 5y agoCompanies throw their weight around constantly. Workers shouldn't be able to as well?
- mongol 5y agoSame thing for Toys R Us in Sweden (1995) https://apnews.com/6d245065b3faaadc70e6eb77e3e5c20f https://apnews.com/6d245065b3faaadc70e6eb77e3e5c20f
- jorander 5y agoUp to this day, McDonald's Denmark is still operating. The wages are higher compared to McDonald's in other countries.
- vimy 5y agoDid McDonald’s raise their prices?
- ipv6ipv4 5y agoNo. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/big-mac-cost-denmark/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/big-mac-cost-denmark/
- rsj_hn 5y agoSnopes is a poor fact checker and should never be relied upon by someone who can use google. Here is a more accurate article that consists of actual reporting: "True, a Big Mac here costs more — $5.60, compared with $4.80 in the United States. But that is a price Danes are willing to pay. “We Danes accept that a burger is expensive, but we also know that working conditions and wages are decent when we eat that burger,” said Soren Kaj Andersen, a University of Copenhagen professor who specializes in labor issues.” https://scm.ncsu.edu/scm-articles/article/the-price-of-a-big-mac-in-denmark-worth-the-wages https://scm.ncsu.edu/scm-articles/article/the-price-of-a-big... Bottom line, everything has a cost. Higher wages do need to be paid for with higher prices. Wise people understand that the world has trade offs and they make those trade offs with open eyes. Foolish people pretend there is no tradeoff.
- ipv6ipv4 5y agoThe snopes article links directly to the Big Mac index [1] which is the authority on the real cost of a Big Mac. It’s cheaper in Denmark than in the U.S. by any measure. 1. https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index
- adventured 5y agoThe Big Mac Index is a mediocre currency education toy, nothing more. And they admit it: > Burgernomics was never intended as a precise gauge of currency misalignment, merely a tool to make exchange-rate theory more digestible. The Big Mac Index is also not accurate as it pertains to the US. Big Mac prices vary considerably by location in the US (ranging from $3.x to $6.x). It'd be like trying to pretend there's a Big Mac price in the EU. The index claims $5.65 for the US. That's their poor attempt at a national guess, they didn't actually figure out prices for every location, and they appear to have picked a high price as their foundation. Cities in Florida, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio are commonly in the $4.x price area for example. This article finds the national average is closer to $4.82 (in my state it's well below that) - https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/why-big-mac-costs-more-seattle-austin https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/why-big-m...
- lordnacho 5y agoIt's hard to just take this union story by itself. It may be true that the unions managed to push McDonald's into this wage deal, but unions do other things as well. This is just to balance the conversation a bit, because at the moment it reads like unions are always reasonable. If you look at recent years in Denmark, there's also been cases where unions have employed strongarm tactics with firms that are already unionized. There was a case a few years back involving a restaurant where the staff were members of a smaller union, and another union came in and told the owner he needed to do a collective bargaining agreement with them instead. They blockaded the restaurant during the conflict. https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vejleg%C3%A5rden-konflikten https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vejleg%C3%A5rden-konflikten Plus there's stories about scaffolding being torn town when the employer decides to go with un-unionized labor. Also there's currently a conflict with the nurses, who want more pay. Now you'd think that maybe people would be grateful to them right after a year and a half of covid, but in fact the government passed a law forcing terms on them, which many of them are not too happy about. It's not like it's simply a free market, nor is it entirely centrally decided, so you can ask yourself whether the system is really as positive as it sounds from this article. There's pros and cons for everyone.
- doikor 5y agoWhy are workers striking for their "friends" in the form of sympathy strikes illegal in the land of the free?
- kevingadd 5y agoBecause if laborers were given power, it would threaten the power of the state, the power of businesses, and the power of the rich On the bright side we don't really have mercs or the US military showing up to murder strikers anymore, so that's nice
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoFamously, air traffic controllers striked in 1981 when Ronald Reagan was president. He fired all of them -- almost 12,000 people. Certain groups are just not legally allowed to strike in the US. Air traffic controllers are critical to the economy and safety of the country.
- TomK32 5y agoIt took the FAA ten years to recover from this and regain previous staffing levels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Controllers_Organization_(1968)#August_1981_strike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Air_Traffic_Contr...
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoDidn’t know that. Another interesting point is that all of the fired air traffic controllers were banned for life from working that job again. That helps explain why it took 10 years to recover: all the new employees were probably newly trained.
- hbosch 5y agoAnd, I believe, FAA training is famously hard and unforgiving. I've heard if you fail one of the tests, you are out forever and cannot reapply (for air traffic controllers).
- w3ll_w3ll_w3ll 5y ago"When I bring this up, people sometimes respond by saying that these kinds of strikes are illegal in the US. This is a true and worthwhile bit of information, but insofar as it is meant to imply that the different legal environment is what accounts for the labor radicalism, this obviously has things backwards. The laws aren’t driving the labor radicalism, but rather the labor radicalism is driving the laws." So true. Every kind of strikes was illegal before it became legal.
- bloqs 5y agoLand of the free and the home of the brave
- tyingq 5y agoThere are ways around US labor laws too. Unions often get away with stealthy "work slowdowns" and "everyone call in sick" actions. Typically without any repercussions for the union or employees because it's illegal, but hard to prove.
- toss1 5y agoYup, it's often a "Work To Rule" action [1], where everyone works exactly by the book. All shortcuts are eliminated, every break is taken to the exact second (instead of working through the breaks to get stuff done), etc. Everything slows down, and that is that. And the point is that it is strictly legal - everything is being done exactly by the book. Even so, employers sometimes sue unions over "malicious compliance". [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule
- doikor 5y agoAnother way that works in many fields is just everyone refusing any and all overtime. If everyone does that most companies (and police, fire departments, public hospitals, etc) can't cope. The company can't really force anyone to take extra overtime. The only thing they can do is fire you (well not in the Nordics but in the US I think yes?) but that will only make their problem of not having enough workers around worse.
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- djrogers 5y agoAre McDonalds in Denmark franchises, or corporate owned? In the US, they are francheses owned by individuals, so painting it as a Worker vs BigCorp issue is a little disingenuous.
- eskathos 5y agofrancheses
- rootusrootus 5y ago> In the US, they are francheses Mostly. A bit under 10% of all McDonalds locations in the US are corporate owned.
- tomtimtall 5y agoHow is it disingenuous? McDonald’s (the corporation) where the ones deciding not to follow union agreements, it wasn’t some individual franchise owner doing it.
- larkost 5y agoMcDonalds operates in the U.S. both in corporate-owned and franchise models. Internationally I am not so sure if there are franchise models, but I know that corporate owns many of the high profile restaurants internationally. But even in franchises McDonalds keeps a tight leash on many aspects of the business (menus, processes, ingredients, and many labor standards), and so in many ways corporate McDonalds is responsible (practically, even if they argue not legally) for the operations at even the franchises. Interestingly, in the U.S., McDonalds owns most of the land under the franchise restaurants, and actually earns more if its profits on rent than on franchise fees or selling ingredients: https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burger/ https://www.wallstreetsurvivor.com/mcdonalds-beyond-the-burg...
- mikkelam 5y agoFun fact is that McDonalds food is still considered relatively cool in Denmark. Especially after a night out or the morning after. Being able to eat it with a good conscience helps.
- aantix 5y agoCulturally, do Danes ever complain about their co-workers output? Do Danes ever advocate for someone to be fired? If workers naturally have different productivity points, why protect their right to earn $22/hour?
- ainiriand 5y agoYou protect the right to make a decent living. While it is true that some workers have a bigger output, the company can always fire a worker with a very low output or assign better salaries to better workers.
- beerandt 5y ago>or assign better salaries to better workers. Not if some workers are being paid more than their productivity/value is worth. >You protect the right to make a decent living. >the company can always fire a worker These statements are contradictory. Firing anyone not worth minimum wage makes the true minimum wage $0 = unemployment. Which essentially prohibits anyone who's value is less than minimum wage from making any living at all, much less make a decent living.
- tomtimtall 5y ago> Firing anyone not worth minimum wage makes the true minimum wage $0 = unemployment. Denmark is not communist. The state doesn’t mandate that you have to work for Mcdonalds and cannot work anywhere else. If a company doesn’t feel you are competent in a position then they can fire you, obviously. The minimum wage doesn’t mean they are obligated to pay anyone who wants to work for them, it simply means that anyone working in the position must have a wage at that point or above.
- beerandt 5y agoWhich hurts low-value labor (including those without job experience or who are high risk or have negative history), by making them unemployable. This notion that a "living wage" raises the floor for everyone is BS. The floor stays at zero and the height to the first step becomes unreachable for some.
- djoldman 5y agoPure theoretical capitalism can't exist in the real world (zero transaction fees, perfect symmetric information, etc.). Therefore, capitalist countries regulate their economies to make up for this: consumer protections (must have a license to perform surgery), measures to curtail the public good paradox (pollution regulation), etc. In the US, we lean toward less regulation than many European countries and we reap different outcomes as a result. Generally: if it's easier to hire/fire employees and pay them the price you choose, it's easier to take a risk with a new business. Empowering unions discourages business risk. Empowering companies encourages monopolistic behavior. There are tradeoffs on both sides. That being said, Denmark has 5.8 million people who are 86% Danish[0], which is roughly the population of the Atlanta metropolitan area [1]. It is difficult to draw confident conclusions from a comparison between the US and Denmark given the vast differences between them. The US path to "Nordic levels of equality" may look much different from the Nordic one. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denmark [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlanta
- emilgouliev 5y ago> In the US, we lean toward less regulation than many European countries and we reap different outcomes as a result. Yes, when laws are friendlier to wealthier people, wealthier people end up better of than poorer people, not sure why you think this is a very insightful comment. > The US path to "Nordic levels of equality" may look much different from the Nordic one. I am always amused to see supposedly economically literate techies making obviously false economic claims: Denmark having a smaller population would actually make it harder for them to achieve an effective welfare state, not easier, given economies of scale. This is econ 101 stuff. In the extreme end, a country with, say, 1000 people would have a much more difficult time implementing a welfare state than Denmark would. American economy is significantly more advanced than the Danish economy, so if they can pull this off, it should be much easier for the US.
- djoldman 5y ago>> In the US, we lean toward less regulation than many European countries and we reap different outcomes as a result. > Yes, when laws are friendlier to wealthier people, wealthier people end up better of than poorer people, not sure why you think this is a very insightful comment. I probably should have written my comments in a slightly different order. This: "Generally: if it's easier to hire/fire employees and pay them the price you choose, it's easier to take a risk with a new business." was meant to be one different result that could come about with less regulation. >> The US path to "Nordic levels of equality" may look much different from the Nordic one. > I am always amused to see supposedly economically literate techies making obviously false economic claims: Denmark having a smaller population would actually make it harder for them to achieve an effective welfare state, not easier, given economies of scale. This is econ 101 stuff. In the extreme end, a country with, say, 1000 people would have a much more difficult time implementing a welfare state than Denmark would. American economy is significantly more advanced than the Danish economy, so if they can pull this off, it should be much easier for the US. What "obviously false" claim did I make? I made a case for why Denmark is significantly different economically and demographically from the US and tentatively stated that that implied that the US path to Nordic levels of equality MAY look much different from the Nordic one. How is it that MAY is obviously false? The opposite of MAY is certainty - is it certain that the US path to equality will be exactly the same as the Nordic one?
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- gregorygoc 5y agoAfter reading some comments I feel really sorry for my fellows across the Atlantic Ocean, clearly Reagan’s neoliberal propaganda has taken its toll. Come visit any Nordic country. You’ll see how the happy, rich and fulfilled society looks like.
- kazinator 5y agoThis article claims that, nevertheless, a Big Mac doesn't cost more in Denmark: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/big-mac-cost-denmark/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/big-mac-cost-denmark/
- waspight 5y agoAny good books about the labour movement?
- Aditya_07 5y agogreat stuff man!
- Markoff 5y ago> McDonalds doesn’t pay Danes high wages because of a statutory wage floor or even because the state stepped in to enforce a collective bargaining agreement. Are their wages even considered high by Denmark standards? I'd just say they have to follow local laws and wages if they wanna exist anywhere in EU, simple as that.
- rvense 5y agoNo, not high. About what you'd expect for unskilled work.
- patall 5y ago> We can see this clearly in another recent example, this time from Finland in 2018. There, the conservative government was preparing to pass a law that would make it easier for employers with 20 or fewer employees to fire workers. Striking in such a situation is somewhat in the interest of any company larger than 20 employees for sake of competition. In which case it would not be a sympathy strike anymore. (As in, one cannot fully know their motivation)
- tingletech 5y agoI think "sympathy strike" is more a term of art than a statement about the striker's full motivation.
- throwaway4good 5y agoDenmark does not have a minimum wage. And the unions are certainly not as strong today as they were in the 80es. What keeps the wages high are high unemployment benifits or alternatives such the government grant for education, ease of hiring, and general very high cost levels.
- geewee 5y agoThe minimum wage part is true (but the article never claims Denmark has) - I'm not 100% sold on your thesis - unions still definitely have real power, look at the nemlig.com scandal that's currently going on. It's probably definitely less than previously though.
- fogihujy 5y ago> unemployment benifits For those unaware, social benefits in Denmark can be as high as 2000€ per month, depending on the circumstances. It's simply not viable to pay employees less, as they'd have no reason to come to work.
- pedro2 5y agoYou can keep unemployment benefits forever?
- wodenokoto 5y agoYes and no. There are different tiers. The lowest tier is kontanthjælp (cash assistance), and it is way less than what is referred to as unemployment benefits. The rules about these changes constantly as it is hot political topic, but I do believe you can keep kontanthjælp forever, given that you don’t hold too much cash/valuables and that you don’t actively say no to employment.
- fogihujy 5y agoPretty much. One has to stay unemployable which probably isn't as easy as one would think.
- imglorp 5y agoUS has an organization planning a national strike on October 15th. Their site is down. The tone is less of specific demands and more of general ire. https://web.archive.org/web/20210830145051/https://octoberstrike.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210830145051/https://octoberst...
- pedro2 5y agoI thought since the aircontrollers strike unions in the US had no real power?
- cardiffspaceman 5y agoIn 2003[1] in Southern California some of the workers who worked at supermarkets went on strike, and picketed certain corporations' stores. For a significant period, the remaining public had to go to other stores if they wanted to avoid the picket lines. As pointed out in [1] a wild fire [2] ended public support of a boycott. I personally lived in the area affected by the strike, but with the hours I worked I could not be choosy enough about where I bought food to add "support strikers" to my calculations, and then the fire [2] made any extra driving related to labor organizations' wishes borderline illegal and definitely antisocial. You will also read in [1] that the supermarkets that were struck might not as easily be affected by a strike if it happened today. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_California_supermarket_strike_of_2003%E2%80%932004 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_California_supermarke... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedar_Fire
- hhansen 5y agoAs a Danish employer, it's easier to just join a collective agreement which is vetted by the lawyers specialized in employment law of both the employer's and labour unions, and use industry standard contracts, than to do individual negotiations with every employee while running the risk of negotiating a deal which doesn't hold up in the court of law. Collective agreements save enormous amounts of administrative time and legal headaches for employers. Yes, the employer's have their own unions. What really sets the Danish labour market apart from the rest of the Nordics, is how much easier it is to let employee's go when there's good reason or fire them when necessary.
- illuminati1911 5y ago” What really sets the Danish labour market apart from the rest of the Nordics, is how much easier it is to let employee's go when there's good reason or fire them when necessary.” Thanks for sharing this, I had no idea. In Finland it’s pretty much impossible to fire someone unless they spend 100% of their time trying to destroy the company they work for.
- Gravityloss 5y agoFinnish jobs typically have a trial period like six months. It's easy to not continue from that to permanent employment / I've heard that happen in IT business. People are also regularly fired for basically company financial reasons. So I would not say parent poster is strictly correct.
- pasiaj 5y agoGravityloss is correct. It is quite trivial to fire a person if there are economic grounds for doing so. It is somewhat complicated and laborious, tho, to get rid of an employee if they are underperforming or acting in a toxic manner.
- rob74 5y agoIf it's like in Germany, you can reduce your staff for economic reasons - however there are rules to follow: if the choice is between a junior dev you hired last year or another who has been with the company for 10 years, you'll have to let the junior dev go first...
- illuminati1911 5y agoAs a Nordic citizen imo this is pretty much one sided left-wing propaganda article. Yes it is true that unions have done some good things in the past, but today with their unreasonable strikes and mob/organized crime-style strategies they are driving most foreign investment away and also pushing long term industrial giants out of North Europe. Unions are almost exclusively the reason why Finnish economy has been and keeps on tanking since 1990s.
- pedro2 5y agoI'm sorry but as a member of the illuminati yourself I will not trust your account.
- mnsc 5y ago>unreasonable strikes and mob/organized crime-style strategies they are driving most foreign investment away and also pushing long term industrial giants out of North Europe. So you are saying the article is "one sided left-wing propaganda" and then your rebuttal is one sided right-wing propaganda. Funny how that works.
- dustintrex 5y agoSurely the collapses of the Soviet Union (a major trade partner), Finland's largest company Nokia (for reasons almost entirely unrelated to trade unions), and the paper/pulp industry (digitisation) bear some responsibility for that?
- mempko 5y agoI thought it was Elop, who tanked Nokia responsible for that?
- batushka3 5y agoUnions promote mediocricy. If thats fine - good. Europe can allow themselves to be mediocre, while most of inovation is done in United States of America. But what if USA would do the same, where we would get inovation? China?
- occz 5y ago> Unions promote mediocricy. If thats fine - good. Europe can allow themselves to be mediocre, while most of inovation is done in United States of America. But what if USA would do the same, where we would get inovation? China? This is a pretty baseless claim - do you have any evidence that most innovation is done the US because of an absence of unions, or despite an absence of unions?
- pjerem 5y agoWell, those mediocre European airplanes can fly.
- tester34 5y agoWhat kind of innovation you mean?
- user-the-name 5y agoSpoken like someone who has never worked in a country with real, functioning unions.
- RamblingCTO 5y agoMost of innovation is done in the US? Where did you get this from? That's plain wrong. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Innovation_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Innovation_Index And why tf would you think innovation is the only driver in well-being of a society? How about something like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoEspecially innovations in gig economy and employee abuse, cant live without those
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoPretty much every employee I see at McDonald's is in their teens or twenties. It's not exactly a career choice (unless you're the franchisee I suppose). In fact every fast food place makes me feel old.
- moksly 5y agoWhy would any Dane who is not in their teens or early twenties work for $22 an hour? Even the MCD “franchise” workers move on to better things.
- pistolpeteDK 5y agoeducation is free(yep) in Denmark. You even get paid to study (about 1000$/month for living expenses). The result is that a lot of people are well educated. If you haven’t completed an education in Denmark, you might not have a lot of options but to accept 22$ an hour
- moksly 5y agoYou get paid $28 to corona test people. We’re actually in a shortage of both unskilled and skilled labour, or you could say, we’re in a shortage of people who are willing to work for $22 an hour in general. It’s actually really hurting a lot of of the service industry. Covid forces their cooks, clerks and waiters into other jobs and none of them are coming back now that we’re done with the pandemic. Places like McD get around this by using part time students. Which is sort of where the article also gets things wrong, because they don’t get the same benefits a fulltime employee gets, well not exactly at least.
- jopsen 5y ago> It's not exactly a career choice (unless you're the franchisee I suppose). But if you look carefully, you'll see lots of people who don't have a career. Not a majority, but still a lot people.
- burlesona 5y agoEdit: I’m responding with my US experience because the author concludes with “if we want the US to be like this…” Working for a few years in a licensed field was very frustrating, so personally I’m glad not to work in a union. The entire system was based on tenure, so there’s limited opportunity to get ahead by working hard, you just have to wait your turn. Further, you are always at risk of losing your career if you speak out against the orthodoxy of the organization (licensing establishment in my case). I want to see all workers paid better and everyone to have a good material life, regardless of whether they’re an all-star worker or entrepreneur. But to me it seems a better formula to get there is for companies to face fierce competition and firm anti-trust regulation to limit their power, and for individuals to have a robust social safety net that greatly reduces the risk of failure which increases their power. As one example, in my experience as a small business owner, nothing causes me more stress than healthcare and ensuring my team has good coverage. But big companies have a huge advantage of scale and can provide this benefit much more efficiently than I can. At the same time, for workers in the US, the need for good healthcare gives employers tremendous power over employees, and deters many from taking on entrepreneurial risk. If we had quality universal health care in the US, I would expect that to result in meaningful wage increases and a lot of new business formation and competition, as it would represent a large shift of power from companies to individuals.
- Scandiravian 5y agoUnions work very differently in Denmark than what you're describing. I'm not part of a collective agreement, but I'm still in a union and they will represent me in case of a legal disagreement with my employer I've been under a collective bargaining agreement some places I've worked, but even then, there's a lot of room to negotiate based on merit A union in Denmark is for many employees simply a cheap way to cover your legal risks when interacting with the job market
- burlesona 5y agoThanks for describing that. I can see how the Danish system mostly works well, and I appreciate you elaborating on that. I will say though, the US has historically had a very hard time taking ideas from European countries and getting them to work the same way here. I don’t fully understand why that is, there are loads of things I wish we could copy from abroad. My guess is there’s a lot of sensitivity to initial conditions when it comes to political outcomes, and due to the way things work here I’m skeptical that we could actually copy the Danish model.
- movetheworld 5y agoWOW! That article gave me goosebumps. How can I upvote this more than once?
- readflaggedcomm 5y agoOrganize a union to pool votes.
- Kiro 5y agoWhat gave you goosebumps? It's a good article but I don't understand what could invoke that feeling. EDIT: I guess it's because I'm from Sweden where this is... just how things work. No legal minimum wage but very strong unions that enforce a minimum indirectly through strikes and sympathy actions such as boycotts and blockades.
- tptacek 5y agoHere's a breakdown I found. (The actual topline number here is $2.7MM; this number is less COGSs): Gross profit: $1,782,000 Crew Payroll - $540,000 Manager Payroll - $108,000 Payroll taxes - $54,000 Advertising - $108,000 Promotions - $13,500 Outside Services - $27,000 Linen - $5,400 Operating Supplies - $27,000 Maintenance - $40,500 Utilities - $81,000 Cash over/short - $2,700 Misc - $13,500 ------------------------------ $761,400 Rent - $391,500 Legal/Accounting - $8,100 Insurance - $54,000 Taxes - $27,000 Misc - $2,700 Depreciation - $94,500 Interest Expense - $27,000 Net nonproduct - $2,700 ------------------------------ $153,900 When I checked, a Big Mac costed 21% less in Denmark ($4.50 vs $5.67 at the current exchange rates, 2 years ago). A year ago, the relationship was reversed, but in both cases the price difference wasn't that significant. It's tricky getting the numbers across all ~80 McDonalds outlets in Denmark. But McDonalds Corporate runs 4 of those outlets, and they break the revenue out for them. We looked at the 2016 grosses, divided by the 4 stores and converted to USD, and the topline for those stores looked identical to those of the typical US McDonalds outlet. Average crew count in Denmark McDonalds appears to be the same as that of US outlets, so automation doesn't seem to be a factor. Further, McDonalds doesn't subsidize health insurance for crew, so the Danish social safety net can't have much to do with the viability of this wage. It does not look like there is room in these numbers to double crew salary. I'm confused as to how these stores can be viable.
- paulluuk 5y agohow could taxes be only 27k over 1782k in gross profit? That seems absurd to me. Not implying that you're wrong, just.. how does this work?
- mikeyouse 5y agoThat 'Gross Profit' seems to be Revenue minus Cost of Goods Sold (e.g. the food / packaging). Income taxes are calculated based on your total Earnings -- so Gross Profit minus all of the other expenses that it costs to run the business like tptacek's summary spells out (payroll, rent, capital depreciation, insurance, accounting, etc etc). https://divergentview.com/investment_guide/gross-profit/ https://divergentview.com/investment_guide/gross-profit/
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y agoAs a counterpoint to the sanguine presentation of unions and “sympathy strikes” https://apnews.com/article/58d7ba8ee9ebc8ae934a20722ecf05c3 https://apnews.com/article/58d7ba8ee9ebc8ae934a20722ecf05c3 The unions were basically able to shut the entire country down due to negotiations of 5 weeks of vacation versus 6 weeks of vacation. From the article: >The strike forced Scandinavian Airlines System, the region’s main carrier, to cancel all flights to Copenhagen, the airline’s principal hub. Some other airlines, including Finnair, were able to maintain service Monday but said they may have to cancel flights today. >Many private bus companies and ferry lines stopped service, although public-run service continued, as did railroad service. But pickets put pressure on public-sector workers to join the strike in sympathy. >In Aarhus on the Danish mainland, police scuffled with pickets who were trying to prevent vehicles from boarding the ferries to Zealand, the island on which Copenhagen sits. In Copenhagen, pickets from a private garbage-collection company briefly blocked public garbage collectors. Now a lot of the majority of union members tend to be blue collar workers. In the US, those would be the biggest demographic that we’re Trump supporters. Imagine a general strike being called over “the stolen election”. Or a general strike over vaccine/mask mandates. Or in the future, a “sympathy strike” on behalf of coal workers harmed by tightening carbon restrictions. Unions and especially coordinated unions across industries are a very powerful force. I do not have confidence that such a force would be actually used for net good in the US.
- pistolpeteDK 5y agoIt’s a little more nuanced I’d say. For once; strikes are supposed to be related to labor-stuff. There’s a court called the “workerscourt” (arbejdsretten) in Denmark. It deals with strikes etc. an unlawful can be called to an end by this court; and all participants in an illegal strike can be ordered to pay a rather significant amount for each hour not-working. So it’s really rather regulated. Some sectors aren’t allowed to strike at all - under no circumstances. Workers here get extra benefits and a great retirement plan, but no right to strike.
- AlbertCory 5y agoMany of you know much more about Nordic labor law than I do, but I've been there, and I'll just observe that service in restaurants is generally terrible. The unions can regulate what the waiters are paid, but they can't force the restaurant to hire them in the first place. Not if the alternative is just making the customers wait.
- jopsen 5y agoIn general anything that involves a human doing something for you is very expensive in Denmark. Taxies, restaurants, day care, contractors, cleaning services. You can't have cheap service and well paid service workers. So if you don't want a class of underpaid workers, you have to settle with less human hours being spent on servicing you.
- ljm 5y agoIt depends what you mean by 'service', really, and what (or where) you're comparing the service to.
- altacc 5y agoI would say that service varies but in general and I've recieved bad service in pretty much every country I've ever been to, but yes, customer service in the Nordics is different to some other countries. I think some of that is down to the server considering themselves the customer's equal, which is as it should be, and is not dependent upon the customer's disposition for their income. Customers in tip-centric countries hold too much individual power over servers, forcing them to be sub-servient whilst hoping that something they have no control over hasn't angered the customer and affected their income. I'll happily take a slight downgrade in service over income inequality & unfairness.
- grasshopperpurp 5y ago>I think some of that is down to the server considering themselves the customer's equal, which is as it should be, and is not dependent upon the customer's disposition for their income. Absolutely. Where I work, if the customer is wrong, we tell them. Some are nicer about it than others. If a customer is rude, we can be rude back. Sometimes it escalates the conflict, but it's ultimately up to the individual how they handle it. But, a lot of people are flabbergasted that we have the gull to tell them they're wrong. "Terrible customer service!" - even if the worker is being extremely polite. You NEVER argue with customers in the US - unless you own the company or you're backed by a union.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoBefore reading this, I never realised that we've outlawed Solidarity Action. So companies can deplatform you but its a crime to deplatform them? So much for freedom of assosiation. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_action https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_action
- jopsen 5y agoBut the article says: it doesn't matter -- laws are shaped based on how we act. It adds friction, sure..
- cptskippy 5y agoUS law favors businesses by restricting actions against them while imbuing them with the rights and privileges of person-ship when it suits them. These laws however don't typically protect their leadership. With the rise of social media and the de-platforming of certain individuals who have a cult of personality, it will be interesting to see how laws evolve. Unfortunately I don't see laws being passed to bring parity or balance but rather, as we've seen with the Texas censorship law, they'll only further benefit those with power.