Text 4932, 142 rader
Skriven 2007-07-25 09:35:01 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
   Kommentar till text 4765 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
Ärende: Labor laws
==================
20 Jul 07 07:01, Robert Bashe wrote to Roy Witt:

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

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

I worked for a company that moved out of state, rather than allow a union
to form within. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

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

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

That also holds true here and is why unions and companys have contracts.
The clause about no strikes during the life of the contract is always
included. Sometimes, 3 years or more.

 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
 RW>> a cut in pay in lieu of a lay off...

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

Unfortunately for the company above, they didn't have that option.

 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.

 RB> ;-)

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

Actually, they're legal anywhere. Boeing Aircraft's union was a closed
union in Seattle, WA. When I moved to San Diego, another aircraft plant
had an open shop.

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

Wow! Don't let the American unions know about that. Union wages are what
drives up the cost of manufacturing, thus the very high costs of products.
It's no wonder that people here buy Chinese products.

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

Kinda like Wal-Mart here. No union, low wages, thus low prices. Of course,
buying in large quantities gets their buyers great discounts, but I don't
think they get that big of a discount.

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

Love it. Just out of high school, I worked as a Produce Manager for a now
defunct grocery firm (National Tea). A union rep paid me a visit, wanting
me to lead the other employees into forming a union. At first I agreed
and it was going good. Then I realized what I had done and regretted it
what I was doing. Rather than work with the union, I quit my job.

                R\%/itt


"Beware the lollipop of mediocrity! Lick it once and you'll suck
forever..."

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