Text 4765, 101 rader
Skriven 2007-07-20 07:01:42 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
   Kommentar till text 4666 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
Ärende: Labor laws
==================
Roy Witt wrote to Robert Bashe on Tuesday July 17 2007 at 08:29:

RB>> Ah, but you're still talking about _one_ company, albeit a large one.
RB>> If you can imagine that one labor union, call it the "Aircraft
RB>> Workers' Association" would negotiate a contract with _all_ the
RB>> American aircraft manufacturers (represented by an "Aircraft
RB>> Employers Association"), not just Boeing, then you'd have something
RB>> similar to the situation in Germany.

RW> Ahhh, we have such a situation here. It's called the UAW, United Auto
RW> Workers. GM, Ford and Chrysler and all of their venders are included
RW> in that one union. One difference is that each local still negotiates
RW> a contract with the place where they work. Although they bring in the
RW> union's negotiators to do that. I don't think you'll find much
RW> difference in those contracts, if any.

Good example, and you're right that this would be comparable, although local
contracts are quite rare in Germany and require the agreement of both
negotiating parties (employers' and employees' associations). They are
generally only agreed to when a company would otherwise go under or simply
transfer its operations outside the country, for example to Poland or the Czech
Republic.

However, in a few cases, larger companies have been known to resign from
membership in the employers' association (it's not compulsory, but generally is
done to avoid costly individual negoations and possible strikes) to negoatiate
individual contracts with their works committee (Betriebsrat). The reason given
is generally that the blanket contracts are not flexible enough for the
situation of a specific individual company, which is naturally true.

On the other hand, the blanket contracts have the advantage that they avoid
both employer and employee envy, since everyone gets treated the same. And in
the same vein, they also provide planning security for a company, since as long
as the blanket contract lasts, there are no strikes and everyone knows what
his/her benefits and responsibilities are.

RW> When the economy began to go down hill, they layed off a lot of
RW> people, but asked their support people (tool and die makers) to take a
RW> cut in pay in lieu of a lay off...

This kind of thing can and has also happened in Germany from 2001-2006, with
the worst part around 2003-2005. And here, there's also the possibility that
the staff/union/works committee will be told that if they don't accept pay cuts
or longer working hours at the same pay, the company will transfer operations
to one of the eastern European EU members, where labor costs and job protection
laws are lower/much less strict than in Germany. This threat applies
considerable pressure and has often been successful in getting agreement to
conditions that would not have been acceptable under normal economic
conditions.

RW> I told my friend that he was way over payed by Solar and that I
RW> couldn't hire him at those wages. He resigned his union stewardship
RW> and went back to work. There is no union at Solar anymore.

;-)

The situation in Germany would be different because of the national labor
legislation, which is another difference between Germany and the States. Most
if not all labor legislation here is national and the states ("Laender") can
only make minor changes - and none that would "water down" the national
legislation. In the States, a lot of the labor legislation - if my memory is
correct - is state legislation, for example I believe "closed shops" (you
_must_ join the company union within a certain period after being hired or you
will be fired) are legal in New York and illegal in North Carolina.

Closed shops are illegal and in fact (to my knowledge) unknown in Germany, but
the staff of every company with more than 10 employees have the _right_ (not
the duty) to form a works committee (Betriebsrat) to represent the employees in
matters of working conditions. And the works committee has quite a lot of say
about things like hiring and firing here, all of it based on national labor
legislation. So in effect, every employee of a company with more than 10
employees is automatically a member of a local "union", but pays nothing - no
dues or responsibilities. By law, the cost of the works committee is borne by
the company.

Now, there are ways to get around the laws governing forming of works
committees, for example setting up a larger retailer (the main examples of this
are in the retailing business) so that each individual store is a legal entity,
thus splitting up the business into numerous small units, each of which is too
small for a works committee. This is the kind of thing retailers like Aldi,
Lidl (food) and MediaMarkt (electronics) practice.

And as I mentioned, there is no _duty_ for employees to form a works committee.
Up until recently, the large international software publisher SAP had no works
committee and the great majority of the employees were satisfied with their
representation (there was an internal employee association for grievences).
This, however, had always been a thorn in the side of the union responsible for
the industry, and last fall a tiny minority of union members in the company
succeeded in forcing formation of a works committee against the will of the
great majority - the law makes this possible. However, the result is not really
a success story for the union, since works committee members are elected by the
employees and the union representation on the SAP works committee is virtually
non-existent: the majority of the employees weren't particularly happy about
the way the works committee had been forced on them, and the union members who
did the forcing and were hoping to be elected to the new works committee found
themselves out in the cold.

Cheers, Bob

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