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Comment by eriken | Hacker News Reader

This happens way more in the south of europe than in the north, where unions realize that competitiveness trumps wages.

This needs to be backed up by data. Depends on how politics work between workers and companies. In Italy there is no system like the German Work Council inside companies, thus strikes happen more often (the negotiations are sometimes more confrontational.) But I wouldn't generalize from this.

> where unions realize that competitiveness trumps wages.

It seems like you’re sneaking an assertion in there. Can you clarify your point a bit? What is the relationship between competition and wages, and why is one better than the other for unions?

Well if a company cannot compete because wages are too high then the company goes under and jobs are gone.

Germany is a good example of this, they have a ton of unions and lots of production but the unions understand that competition is key to survival so there are very few strikes.

I live in Southern Europe, and our Volkswagen factory also has had much fewer strikes or other union protests, with workers voluntarily accepting temporary wage cuts and such.

I suggest you look into the differences in the management of companies of those countries rather than the unions.

Germany has a modern welfare system. When demand goes down, salaries go down. So the state welfare system makes up the difference.

German unions also have a seat at the board. Unlike most board run companies a decision isn't made without input from the union. So yes, there few strikes in Germany because labor and management actually behave like adults.

I wonder where the money for the difference comes from? Taxes. Also German economy is pretty solid since they're a net exporter at the expense of the rest of the EU. This modern welfare system wouldn't work in France, let alone Southern Europe.

Yes it comes from taxes, where else. There is no reason German union rules wouldn't work elsewhere. But I believe other companies simply do not want it. They want to delegate to the workers what they want with little feedback. German companies take worker feedback into the cost and rate of production. Therefor, no one is surprised. Workers no what they are expected to produce and management knows what to expect from labor.

This is why Walmart has utterly failed to expand into Germany. They thought they could take their abusive worker policies into Germany and when that didn't work they pulled out.

Italy has the same mechanism (it's called Cassa integrazione guadagni). It is sometimes abused for companies that ought to have gone bankrupt decades ago, but Italy has decent welfare policies and worker rights policies, especially compared to the US.

The German works-council system is exceptional, though, and it's a key part of making that work. There has to be trust in the other direction. Trust that accepting a competitive pay deal won't just immediately result in more executive pay, payouts to shareholders, or the factory being closed anyway.

It's not directly comparable, as in Germany the workers have much more power in companies to start with. You need fewer strikes if your representatives in the company board can affect the decisions before they are announced.

Our office cantina here in Norway was closed for a good 2 months or so last year because of a striker of the restaurant and hotel worker's union.

Denmark and Norway beg to differ...

It happens in France all the time, mostly in the public sector.

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