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"The company's management and General Works Council have jointly agreed to pay all eligible employees a special lump sum bonus of up to 7,300 euros, a figure th

"The company's management and General Works Council have jointly agreed to pay all eligible employees a special lump sum bonus of up to 7,300 euros, a figure that is even higher than the current maximum payment cap of 6,465 euros." This General Works Council seems to be something like a separate "union within the company", in addition to whatever union represents various workers within the organization. On top of that, Mercedes Benz has a corporate Supervisory Board with 1/2 of the members representing the employees. Interesting how this structure has a headline like this one, vs the ">10k workers laid off from giant corporation with record profits for the past two years" headlines that seem to be popping up here daily.

amalgamated_inc 4y ago
Having a supervisory board w/ 1/2 of members representing (non-management) employees is mandatory by law for any corporation over 50 (?) employees in Germany. The "General Works Council" is just that board, I believe. So this is quite a normal setup for a large German company.
- arez 4y ago
  It never mandatory to have a Betriebsrat in Germany even with 100k employees you could not have one. You can however start one already with 5 full-time employees. Companies tend to have one around 50+ employees because before that it rarely makes sense
  - amalgamated_inc 4y ago
    So it's not mandatory if somehow all employees decided not to form one, but if any of them wanted to, it's mandatory to let them and presumably support them/listen to them in some way?
    - wirrbel 4y ago
      Basically it’s not mandatory in the sense that you will not be fined as a company if you do not have one. However, employees can make a motion to elect a Betriebsrat (works council) in a given location. Then, if 3 locations have a local Betriebsrat the Gesamtbetriebsrat can be formed which is regularly elected across the whole German staff. Grocery chains like Lidl and Aldi have prevented the formation of a Betriebsrat by employing union busting style measures (intimidating or firing staff, etc). Iirc teslas giga fab does not have an elected Betriebsrat. Since many American companies incorporate in Germany for their German branches, they can also face Betriebsrats elections. Overall I do think a Betriebsrat is a net positive for a company. It’s not always as profit oriented as an executive but it has a long term interest in the company as opposed to executives who just think in quarter years and about keeping shareholders happy.
      - amalgamated_inc 4y ago
        Thanks for the explainer! As always with Germans, the answer is "it's really complicated" lol
      - arlcode 4y ago
        Tesla does have a Betriebsrat if I recall correctly. It was formed very early meaning before most of the Frontline employees were hired . There was criticism at the time that it was filled with people loyal to management rather than workers
        wirrbel 4y ago
        Ah smart Trick by Tesla then, elections every 7 years iirc so Tesla managed to avert a strong works council for the first years
        amalgamated_inc 4y ago
        lol ok that's pretty advanced :) if you can't bust 'em, you can't join 'em, at least lace them with cronies for the first couple years.
- netrus 4y ago
  General Works Council is the Betriebsrat (100% employees, not mandatory, but employees cannot be stopped from forming one), the board is the Aufsichtsrat (50% employees, mandatory for large corporations). It works really well most of the time.
bluedino 4y ago
> Interesting how this structure has a headline like this one, vs the ">10k workers laid off from giant corporation with record profits for the past two years" headlines that seem to be popping up here daily. Aren't large bonuses common enough with FAANG that they don't even make the news?
- pc86 4y ago
  Exactly, and this bonus is less than $8k USD. Most FAANG bonuses are 3-5x that, and yearly.
  - Firmwarrior 4y ago
    yeah.. I'm happy for the regular workers, but as a code monkey, I'd rather make $400k a year and get randomly laid off for no reason than make $100k forever
    - mistrial9 4y ago
      [flagged]
- elil17 4y ago
  They aren't common for many (most?) employees in FAANG. This is more like all of Facebook's content moderators or Amazon's warehouse workers getting a $7,000 bonus. Certainly that would hit the news?
  - jandrese 4y ago
    I remember a few years ago when Elon Musk got a huge payout for hitting a production target with Tesla. It was basically a huge bet that paid off because they mandated tons of overtime. I did the math and realized that if he took half of the bonus and distributed it evenly to every single Tesla employee, from VPs down to cafeteria staff, it would amount to around $40,000 for every person in the company. Of course Elon pocketed it all. Later that year and for the following year Tesla would be embroiled in labor scandals.
NickC25 4y ago
>On top of that, Mercedes Benz has a corporate Supervisory Board with 1/2 of the members representing the employees. Absolutely love that, and stuff like that would never be allowed to form here in the US. Labor having an equal seat at the table should be seen as a good thing for the purposes of long-term sustainability, not a bad thing. Can it have drawbacks? Sure. However, the flipside is that currently in most places, such as the US, Capital has all the seats at the table, or sometimes Labor will given a symbolic place at the proverbial kid's table, with no real ability to enact change or make their voices heard. I applaud what Mercedes-Benz is doing here.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  They are not very standing out, all big german companys have that model? Also that model swings both ways. Employees will usually remain loyal to the bitter end.
  - moooo99 4y ago
    > They are not very standing out, all big german companys have that model? Its pretty much mandatory for many big German companies
- missedthecue 4y ago
  That makes about as much sense to me as putting CEOs on the board of unions.
  - greenn 4y ago
    The difference might be that workers have an interest in maintaining the business so they still have well paid jobs while CEOs do not necessarily have an interest in unions' well-being.
    - flohofwoe 4y ago
      Many CEOs don't even have an interest in the company's well being (in the long run at at least)
alex_sf 4y ago
This is a fairly normal structure for large German companies, fwiw.
moffkalast 4y ago
So, a 13th salary? This is fairly common.
- elil17 4y ago
  I don't understand what you mean by this. I'm not sure what it is in Germany, but an auto plant employee in the US would max out there salary around $50 or $60k/year with overtime. Many make much less than that. This is probably a 10 to 20% bonus for many of their workers, which is extremely high for factory work.
  - brewdad 4y ago
    It that really the going rate for an auto worker in the US these days? I knew people making $100k+ per year at those jobs 30 years ago. They worked as much overtime as they could get but some of them saved a ton. Others bought boats and second homes.
  - bluedino 4y ago
    > an auto plant employee in the US would max out there salary around $50 or $60k/year with overtime That's definitely wrong. GM has said its average hourly worker earns around $90,000 in wages, overtime and profit sharing. The only workers who can reach that level are skilled trades, about 15% of the workforce, the UAW said. In-progression and temp workers earn much less. However, a GM spokesman countered that skilled trades workers earn up to $123,000 annually, including profit sharing and overtime but not benefits. https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2019/09/27/gm-strike-mary-barra-pay-uaw-wages/3776066002/ https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2019/09/27/gm-strike-...
    - elil17 4y ago
      Skilled trades workers can make that much, but those aren’t the majority of jobs. Glassdoor says Mercedes Benz production workers make about $18/hour on average: https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Mercedes-Benz-USA-Assembly-Line-Worker-Hourly-Pay-E23354_D_KO18,38.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Mercedes-Benz-USA-Assem...
arrrg 4y ago
Worker Councils are to be elected in German companies beyond a certain (small) size (at least five employees who can vote and three employees who can be elected). This doesn’t mean that all German companies have them. The workers have to organize the vote themselves and if they don’t do it then there‘s no Works Council. Tactics similar to union busting are also a thing in Germany to prevent Worker Councils from forming. However, large (old) companies will nearly always have such a Council in Germany. What can they do? Basically, they do have a voice concerning anything that touches the day to day working situation. Monitor whether the employees adheres to norms and rules. Employers also have to inform the Council members about anything relevant going on concerning the workers. Especially when it comes to hiring, firing and restructuring the Council can also veto and force the employer to sue and get the court to override the veto. In general you don’t really want to have the Council on your bad side as an employer, even though the power isn’t limitless and how much power there is in practice depends on the specific Council and how it fulfills its duties. Unions aren’t needed for any of this but they will always want to help install a Workers Council. I recently started at a public health insurance and we had someone from the Council sit in during my interview. When I was on the other side and took part in an interview we also had someone from the Council there to look over our shoulders, also when we documented our evaluation of the candidate.
- FlyingSnake 4y ago
  I am part of my company’s Betriebsrat and while sometimes it is a bit overwhelming, it really is a helpful provision. We don’t have infinite powers however the company management respects the Betriebsrat and is always mindful when it’s trying to enact policies. This system of checks and balances is something that’s not much appreciated. You won’t believe what companies can get away with if there’s not Betriebsrat oversight.
beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
Interestingly, I'm currently reading a book on the history of austerity and the author shows how worker councils were a thing in the UK during and immediately after WW1; however, austerity was put in place to systematically prioritize capital and the minority capital class over working class people. Lest that sound slightly conspiratorial the author cites specific memos and comments from the Treasury at the time that make that point explicit. They simply insisted that working class would have to "sacrifice" so that the system of capital could be restored. The interests of capital was always prioritized; it was all that mattered. People were expected to be more productive, consume less, and earn less.
- nickbauman 4y ago
  What's the title?
  - leshow 4y ago
    I'm going to guess this, because I am reading it also The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism Clara E. Mattei It is excellent so far.
- greenie_beans 4y ago
  what book is that?
  - beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
    Capitol Order by Clara E. Mattei. It's very well written and the research into the actual memoranda from the period she is discussing is very eye-opening. It is also, unfortunately, quite depressing.
- swores 4y ago
  Depressingly, Brexit has just caused the same thing... The old page [0] about EU-mandated law regarding Works Councils now says "The Brexit transition period has ended and new rules on participating in a European Works Council now apply. This page is currently out of date." The new page [1] says: "Only people employed in EEA countries can ask their employer to set up an EWC. If you are employed in the UK you cannot ask for one to be set up" :( (I'm not actually sure if this was an intentional change or just an accidental side-effect of the UK leaving the EEA [2], but the Tories hardly deserve the benefit of the doubt regarding intent when it comes to a pro-capital anti-workers change, and they could easily just extend the old bill to cover "EEA or UK" rather than "only EEA" if it wasn't wanted...) [0] https://www.gov.uk/apply-european-works-council https://www.gov.uk/apply-european-works-council [1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/participating-in-a-european-works-council https://www.gov.uk/guidance/participating-in-a-european-work... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_membership_of_the_European_Economic_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_membership_of_t...
unity1001 4y ago
> This General Works Council seems to be something like a separate "union within the company", No, its work council or workers' council that is integrated to the company's top management per regulations. Germany and various countries have them, and its a Eu recommendation. It seems to work quite well judging from the last 2 decades.
donkeyd 4y ago
A works council is a requirement for every company over 50 employees in The Netherlands. It's pretty common that they're involved in deciding on bonuses like this. However, they often don't have that much power in the actual decision.
agilob 4y ago
Such things exist because of an EU directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council
- lispm 4y ago
  Germany had that before the EU existed.
wirrbel 4y ago
The works council is a legally regulated means of participation of the staff in a company. Establishing a works council there are a few hurdles just like in ionizing. But different from unionizing there is no membership fee and the works council is regularly elected by all associates. Works council has a say in hiring. And firing decisions. And also on other business decision in the company. At times this is good and progressive, sometimes not so much (usually huge fans of combustion engines). Elected Works council members can be union members but also independent. Iirc the mode worked so well that Daimler tried to export it to an American plant but it was shut down there because “this is not how we run things here” Ah and then with VW there is the story how the works council let itself be bribed
acchow 4y ago
Those record profits are past looking and don't predict how future years will play out. Many tech companies over-hired and need to trim. For comparison, Google just announced layoffs of 12k today. By Sept 2022, Google had 187k employees. This is up 68k from 119k in Sept 2019's or growth of 57% from pre-pandemic. The 12k layoffs today represent less than 17.6% of their growth in new employees since before the pandemic. Contrast with Mercedes Benz which had 152k employees in 2019 and 173k employees today, a growth of only 13.8% since pre-pandemic.
jayd16 4y ago
I guess I don't understand the pushback against layoffs. You layoff based on future projections, not past performance. It would be sinister to layoff someone to prevent some kind of timed bonus but I've seen no reports of that. As far as I can tell its just about reduced investments and reduced project scopes. It sucks and people deserve severance and unemployment but at the same time why is a reduction in workforce supposed to be immoral? Have severance packages been surprisingly light or something?
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> General Works Council seems to be something like a separate "union within the company" It’s less adversarial. In America, industrial unions sprung from a time when unions fought capitalism and management were criminals. That stain persists. Tech companies’ stock awards are close to the German model. Add a Board seat elected by the ESOP and you have a tight approximation.
- pgeorgi 4y ago
  > management were criminals. That stain persists Indeed. Management never moved on.
hef19898 4y ago
A worket council is by no means a union, it is an elected council of employees representing employees interest all the way to the board. Usually so, members of the workers council are members of whatever union is representing the industry, in Mercedes case IGM (Industrial union of metal and electronic workers). Those members tend not to be union functionaries, but the head of Mercedes workers council for sure is an important figure within IGM. I do have my issues with all rhe politics and self serving that can happen with those councils, the overall idea is pretty solid so. For one situation gone wrong, google VWs Brazil scandals involving various private jet trips for high ranking worker councils members to visit their mistresses in Brazil.
giantg2 4y ago
I agree that structure sounds enticing. I'm not sure the comparison between companies in different countries, in different industries/segments is really useful though. It sounds like you're implying the structure prevented layoffs. But in reality I feel it had little to do with profitability. Kind of like blaming a president for the overal stock market going up or down.
lmedinas 4y ago
one more upvote... >"Interesting how this structure has a headline like this one, vs the ">10k workers >laid off from giant corporation with record profits for the past two years" >headlines that seem to be popping up here daily." i often see people going or want to go to giant IT companies, as you refer, forgetting the "safety" of working for big German or even European companies. In some German companies you get a job for life, a contract without end and the "working council" works very hard to find solutions for all workers and for the company. This is one of the reasons why i would hardly work for an American Company in US.
ricardobayes 4y ago
Yes, and it is also paid for assembly line workers, even in (some?) plants not located in Germany. Very classy move in my opinion.

amalgamated_inc 4y ago

Having a supervisory board w/ 1/2 of members representing (non-management) employees is mandatory by law for any corporation over 50 (?) employees in Germany. The "General Works Council" is just that board, I believe. So this is quite a normal setup for a large German company.

arez 4y ago
It never mandatory to have a Betriebsrat in Germany even with 100k employees you could not have one. You can however start one already with 5 full-time employees. Companies tend to have one around 50+ employees because before that it rarely makes sense
- amalgamated_inc 4y ago
  So it's not mandatory if somehow all employees decided not to form one, but if any of them wanted to, it's mandatory to let them and presumably support them/listen to them in some way?
  - wirrbel 4y ago
    Basically it’s not mandatory in the sense that you will not be fined as a company if you do not have one. However, employees can make a motion to elect a Betriebsrat (works council) in a given location. Then, if 3 locations have a local Betriebsrat the Gesamtbetriebsrat can be formed which is regularly elected across the whole German staff. Grocery chains like Lidl and Aldi have prevented the formation of a Betriebsrat by employing union busting style measures (intimidating or firing staff, etc). Iirc teslas giga fab does not have an elected Betriebsrat. Since many American companies incorporate in Germany for their German branches, they can also face Betriebsrats elections. Overall I do think a Betriebsrat is a net positive for a company. It’s not always as profit oriented as an executive but it has a long term interest in the company as opposed to executives who just think in quarter years and about keeping shareholders happy.
    - amalgamated_inc 4y ago
      Thanks for the explainer! As always with Germans, the answer is "it's really complicated" lol
    - arlcode 4y ago
      Tesla does have a Betriebsrat if I recall correctly. It was formed very early meaning before most of the Frontline employees were hired . There was criticism at the time that it was filled with people loyal to management rather than workers
      - wirrbel 4y ago
        Ah smart Trick by Tesla then, elections every 7 years iirc so Tesla managed to avert a strong works council for the first years
        amalgamated_inc 4y ago
        lol ok that's pretty advanced :) if you can't bust 'em, you can't join 'em, at least lace them with cronies for the first couple years.
netrus 4y ago
General Works Council is the Betriebsrat (100% employees, not mandatory, but employees cannot be stopped from forming one), the board is the Aufsichtsrat (50% employees, mandatory for large corporations). It works really well most of the time.

bluedino 4y ago

> Interesting how this structure has a headline like this one, vs the ">10k workers laid off from giant corporation with record profits for the past two years" headlines that seem to be popping up here daily. Aren't large bonuses common enough with FAANG that they don't even make the news?

pc86 4y ago
Exactly, and this bonus is less than $8k USD. Most FAANG bonuses are 3-5x that, and yearly.
- Firmwarrior 4y ago
  yeah.. I'm happy for the regular workers, but as a code monkey, I'd rather make $400k a year and get randomly laid off for no reason than make $100k forever
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    [flagged]
elil17 4y ago
They aren't common for many (most?) employees in FAANG. This is more like all of Facebook's content moderators or Amazon's warehouse workers getting a $7,000 bonus. Certainly that would hit the news?
- jandrese 4y ago
  I remember a few years ago when Elon Musk got a huge payout for hitting a production target with Tesla. It was basically a huge bet that paid off because they mandated tons of overtime. I did the math and realized that if he took half of the bonus and distributed it evenly to every single Tesla employee, from VPs down to cafeteria staff, it would amount to around $40,000 for every person in the company. Of course Elon pocketed it all. Later that year and for the following year Tesla would be embroiled in labor scandals.

NickC25 4y ago

>On top of that, Mercedes Benz has a corporate Supervisory Board with 1/2 of the members representing the employees. Absolutely love that, and stuff like that would never be allowed to form here in the US. Labor having an equal seat at the table should be seen as a good thing for the purposes of long-term sustainability, not a bad thing. Can it have drawbacks? Sure. However, the flipside is that currently in most places, such as the US, Capital has all the seats at the table, or sometimes Labor will given a symbolic place at the proverbial kid's table, with no real ability to enact change or make their voices heard. I applaud what Mercedes-Benz is doing here.

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
They are not very standing out, all big german companys have that model? Also that model swings both ways. Employees will usually remain loyal to the bitter end.
- moooo99 4y ago
  > They are not very standing out, all big german companys have that model? Its pretty much mandatory for many big German companies
missedthecue 4y ago
That makes about as much sense to me as putting CEOs on the board of unions.
- greenn 4y ago
  The difference might be that workers have an interest in maintaining the business so they still have well paid jobs while CEOs do not necessarily have an interest in unions' well-being.
  - flohofwoe 4y ago
    Many CEOs don't even have an interest in the company's well being (in the long run at at least)

alex_sf 4y ago

This is a fairly normal structure for large German companies, fwiw.

moffkalast 4y ago

So, a 13th salary? This is fairly common.

elil17 4y ago
I don't understand what you mean by this. I'm not sure what it is in Germany, but an auto plant employee in the US would max out there salary around $50 or $60k/year with overtime. Many make much less than that. This is probably a 10 to 20% bonus for many of their workers, which is extremely high for factory work.
- brewdad 4y ago
  It that really the going rate for an auto worker in the US these days? I knew people making $100k+ per year at those jobs 30 years ago. They worked as much overtime as they could get but some of them saved a ton. Others bought boats and second homes.
- bluedino 4y ago
  > an auto plant employee in the US would max out there salary around $50 or $60k/year with overtime That's definitely wrong. GM has said its average hourly worker earns around $90,000 in wages, overtime and profit sharing. The only workers who can reach that level are skilled trades, about 15% of the workforce, the UAW said. In-progression and temp workers earn much less. However, a GM spokesman countered that skilled trades workers earn up to $123,000 annually, including profit sharing and overtime but not benefits. https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2019/09/27/gm-strike-mary-barra-pay-uaw-wages/3776066002/ https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2019/09/27/gm-strike-...
  - elil17 4y ago
    Skilled trades workers can make that much, but those aren’t the majority of jobs. Glassdoor says Mercedes Benz production workers make about $18/hour on average: https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Mercedes-Benz-USA-Assembly-Line-Worker-Hourly-Pay-E23354_D_KO18,38.htm https://www.glassdoor.com/Hourly-Pay/Mercedes-Benz-USA-Assem...

arrrg 4y ago

Worker Councils are to be elected in German companies beyond a certain (small) size (at least five employees who can vote and three employees who can be elected). This doesn’t mean that all German companies have them. The workers have to organize the vote themselves and if they don’t do it then there‘s no Works Council. Tactics similar to union busting are also a thing in Germany to prevent Worker Councils from forming. However, large (old) companies will nearly always have such a Council in Germany. What can they do? Basically, they do have a voice concerning anything that touches the day to day working situation. Monitor whether the employees adheres to norms and rules. Employers also have to inform the Council members about anything relevant going on concerning the workers. Especially when it comes to hiring, firing and restructuring the Council can also veto and force the employer to sue and get the court to override the veto. In general you don’t really want to have the Council on your bad side as an employer, even though the power isn’t limitless and how much power there is in practice depends on the specific Council and how it fulfills its duties. Unions aren’t needed for any of this but they will always want to help install a Workers Council. I recently started at a public health insurance and we had someone from the Council sit in during my interview. When I was on the other side and took part in an interview we also had someone from the Council there to look over our shoulders, also when we documented our evaluation of the candidate.

FlyingSnake 4y ago
I am part of my company’s Betriebsrat and while sometimes it is a bit overwhelming, it really is a helpful provision. We don’t have infinite powers however the company management respects the Betriebsrat and is always mindful when it’s trying to enact policies. This system of checks and balances is something that’s not much appreciated. You won’t believe what companies can get away with if there’s not Betriebsrat oversight.

beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago

Interestingly, I'm currently reading a book on the history of austerity and the author shows how worker councils were a thing in the UK during and immediately after WW1; however, austerity was put in place to systematically prioritize capital and the minority capital class over working class people. Lest that sound slightly conspiratorial the author cites specific memos and comments from the Treasury at the time that make that point explicit. They simply insisted that working class would have to "sacrifice" so that the system of capital could be restored. The interests of capital was always prioritized; it was all that mattered. People were expected to be more productive, consume less, and earn less.

nickbauman 4y ago
What's the title?
- leshow 4y ago
  I'm going to guess this, because I am reading it also The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism Clara E. Mattei It is excellent so far.
greenie_beans 4y ago
what book is that?
- beezlebroxxxxxx 4y ago
  Capitol Order by Clara E. Mattei. It's very well written and the research into the actual memoranda from the period she is discussing is very eye-opening. It is also, unfortunately, quite depressing.
swores 4y ago
Depressingly, Brexit has just caused the same thing... The old page [0] about EU-mandated law regarding Works Councils now says "The Brexit transition period has ended and new rules on participating in a European Works Council now apply. This page is currently out of date." The new page [1] says: "Only people employed in EEA countries can ask their employer to set up an EWC. If you are employed in the UK you cannot ask for one to be set up" :( (I'm not actually sure if this was an intentional change or just an accidental side-effect of the UK leaving the EEA [2], but the Tories hardly deserve the benefit of the doubt regarding intent when it comes to a pro-capital anti-workers change, and they could easily just extend the old bill to cover "EEA or UK" rather than "only EEA" if it wasn't wanted...) [0] https://www.gov.uk/apply-european-works-council https://www.gov.uk/apply-european-works-council [1] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/participating-in-a-european-works-council https://www.gov.uk/guidance/participating-in-a-european-work... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_membership_of_the_European_Economic_Area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_membership_of_t...

unity1001 4y ago

> This General Works Council seems to be something like a separate "union within the company", No, its work council or workers' council that is integrated to the company's top management per regulations. Germany and various countries have them, and its a Eu recommendation. It seems to work quite well judging from the last 2 decades.

donkeyd 4y ago

A works council is a requirement for every company over 50 employees in The Netherlands. It's pretty common that they're involved in deciding on bonuses like this. However, they often don't have that much power in the actual decision.

agilob 4y ago

Such things exist because of an EU directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_council

lispm 4y ago
Germany had that before the EU existed.

wirrbel 4y ago

The works council is a legally regulated means of participation of the staff in a company. Establishing a works council there are a few hurdles just like in ionizing. But different from unionizing there is no membership fee and the works council is regularly elected by all associates. Works council has a say in hiring. And firing decisions. And also on other business decision in the company. At times this is good and progressive, sometimes not so much (usually huge fans of combustion engines). Elected Works council members can be union members but also independent. Iirc the mode worked so well that Daimler tried to export it to an American plant but it was shut down there because “this is not how we run things here” Ah and then with VW there is the story how the works council let itself be bribed

acchow 4y ago

Those record profits are past looking and don't predict how future years will play out. Many tech companies over-hired and need to trim. For comparison, Google just announced layoffs of 12k today. By Sept 2022, Google had 187k employees. This is up 68k from 119k in Sept 2019's or growth of 57% from pre-pandemic. The 12k layoffs today represent less than 17.6% of their growth in new employees since before the pandemic. Contrast with Mercedes Benz which had 152k employees in 2019 and 173k employees today, a growth of only 13.8% since pre-pandemic.

jayd16 4y ago

I guess I don't understand the pushback against layoffs. You layoff based on future projections, not past performance. It would be sinister to layoff someone to prevent some kind of timed bonus but I've seen no reports of that. As far as I can tell its just about reduced investments and reduced project scopes. It sucks and people deserve severance and unemployment but at the same time why is a reduction in workforce supposed to be immoral? Have severance packages been surprisingly light or something?

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> General Works Council seems to be something like a separate "union within the company" It’s less adversarial. In America, industrial unions sprung from a time when unions fought capitalism and management were criminals. That stain persists. Tech companies’ stock awards are close to the German model. Add a Board seat elected by the ESOP and you have a tight approximation.

pgeorgi 4y ago
> management were criminals. That stain persists Indeed. Management never moved on.

hef19898 4y ago

A worket council is by no means a union, it is an elected council of employees representing employees interest all the way to the board. Usually so, members of the workers council are members of whatever union is representing the industry, in Mercedes case IGM (Industrial union of metal and electronic workers). Those members tend not to be union functionaries, but the head of Mercedes workers council for sure is an important figure within IGM. I do have my issues with all rhe politics and self serving that can happen with those councils, the overall idea is pretty solid so. For one situation gone wrong, google VWs Brazil scandals involving various private jet trips for high ranking worker councils members to visit their mistresses in Brazil.

giantg2 4y ago

I agree that structure sounds enticing. I'm not sure the comparison between companies in different countries, in different industries/segments is really useful though. It sounds like you're implying the structure prevented layoffs. But in reality I feel it had little to do with profitability. Kind of like blaming a president for the overal stock market going up or down.

lmedinas 4y ago

one more upvote... >"Interesting how this structure has a headline like this one, vs the ">10k workers >laid off from giant corporation with record profits for the past two years" >headlines that seem to be popping up here daily." i often see people going or want to go to giant IT companies, as you refer, forgetting the "safety" of working for big German or even European companies. In some German companies you get a job for life, a contract without end and the "working council" works very hard to find solutions for all workers and for the company. This is one of the reasons why i would hardly work for an American Company in US.

ricardobayes 4y ago

Yes, and it is also paid for assembly line workers, even in (some?) plants not located in Germany. Very classy move in my opinion.