Slashdot Mirror
IBM Europe Workers Strike
csimoes writes "IBM employees in Europe are on
strike today. This is in response to the 10,000-13,000 job cuts that IBM is planning, most of them in Europe. Strikers will be wearing black and blue to signify their struggle. Here is their main union web site. Now I can't say I'm big union guy, but they do make some interesting points on their site. Such as: "IBM is a wealthy and successful company. Its first quarter profit for 2005 was $1.4 billion, and $9 billion for the whole of 2004. It increased the dividend to its shareholders, recently bought back $5 billion in IBM stock, and acquired 19 companies in 2004." The union also questions if other cost cutting mechanisms could achieve the same effect without cutting so may jobs."
The limbs on a tree can always come up with a reason why they shouldn't be pruned.
If IBM thinks they don't need these workers, they should be able to eliminate them. If IBM is wrong then the company will suffer and the worker will find a better job. If IBM is right they will benefit and the worker will need to get their sorry ass in gear or work at a crappier job.
After being through a half-dozen jobs in my life I realized that a capable person losing a job is an opportunity, not a tragedy.
I bet there are a couple of executives being laid off. Your opinion might change if you ever work 20 years at a company and actually become an executive.
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Laying off 10~13K employee's will no doubt save a lot as well.
The employee's at my company cost roughly 1.3 times their salary. So if I have a support person that makes 36K a year they cost my company around 46K a year with benefits (we pay 100% at my company so there is no matching) and govt program matching, unemployment, workers comp,
Lets say these are the averages:
10K people, 30K salary, 36K salary with benefits
How much does IBM save? 360 Million a year.
That is a very low estimate not including any workspace costs, energy consumption, vacation, bonuses,
Start your own business then you'll see where most of your expenses are, in your employees. So make damn sure you need someone before you hire them.
And I'm sure cutting benefits, pensions, research and development, and giving everybody a 25% pay cut could have saved millions too. Just because it makes the numbers look good doesn't make it a good idea.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
It sure would be a sad day if it doesn't help. Unions are what got us the 40 hour (cough, cough--50 hour work week if you're in the tech sector) work week, minimum wage, benefits, etc.
:).
With US corporations able to force employees to TRAIN their outsourced replacements to receive their 4 week "notice" period, someone|thing|group needs to be able to fight for employees rights. The best, though clearly not perfect, solution we have currently are Unions.
Mayhaps, us slashdotters could come up with a technological replacement
Why would a company want to keep 10~13K employees that are obviously not necessary in the daily business? Simply because they are making a profit?
Because their corporate charter is a social contract, issued in the expectation of receiving some societal benefit, like employment for citizens.
I'm not a fan of layoffs either but a company is there to make money, nothing else.
Not in Europe. They actually retained some ideals from the Enlightenment, beyond their immediate usefulness in fomenting rebellion. You know, things like human rights come before other considerations, like profits.
Seems like every time I'm in Europe there is a major strike happening.
Their workers are not as cowed as ours.
Edith Keeler Must Die
What most Americans don't realise is that French workers are virtually equally as productive as American workers. It just so happens that the French workers don't work so many hours, so more people are required to do the same amount of work. There are other reasons why European economies aren't doing as well, including less flexible labour laws, but productivity isn't one of them. Personally I think the Europeans are happier as people because they're not slaves to their jobs so much as us here in N. America. Another thing when evaluating the cost of business ties in to last night's 60 Minutes: companies don't have the cost of providing health benefits. You might might sit there with your superior attitude laughing at the Europeans and their quaint militantness, but I think the last laugh is on you, the corporate slave monkey.
I'm not sure this would be considered "sad" by either IBM stockholders or Indians.
Do you expect them to pay more for the same work just to get people with the "right" nationality or ethnicity?
what happens when a company buys back all it's stock? Is it answerable to no one?
The problem is that we still have a nostalgic view of employer loyalty to its employees. The way it's supposed to work is that you "do your time" and in X amount of years, you retire with a golden watch and pension.
Of course, in the 21st century, this is a myth. That's why I'm a proponent of Stephen Pollan's methodology in Die Broke -- be ruthless and mercenary about your approach to employment. He calls this the "Mercantile Ethic". Always be looking for your next job, and always take the job that's in your best financial interests, not because it's a better fit for your interests. While you should work hard, you shouldn't buy into the "holistic" view of work. Your work is not your life, no matter how much you love it or how many hours you put in. Work is work. It's an income generating stream, period. Don't get caught up in company politics because in the end, you'll be standing in the unemployment line right alongside the kissup and the quiet hardworker. You're a bean. He uses professional athletes as examples we should follow when pursuing jobs in this new reality.
Lots of other good advice there too, much of it traditional (e.g. live beneath your means, kill your consumer credit, etc) and some definitely non traditional (e.g. lease your car rather than buy and never retire).
Well... if the company exists entirely and exclusively to make a profit -- as American corporations do -- anything else would breach that contract. And breaching a contract would be an ethical lapse. So, in a sense, it's just as much a priority in America; we just have a different vision of what ethical behavior for a corporation means.
No, it is the other way. The wages are the same or higher in Europe, but there are fewer hidden taxes.
The US hides it taxes by keeping a very low income tax, but having the worlds highest corporate tax.
Any tech worker, employed or not, should care when 13,000 tech workers get laid off. No, I'm not talking about moral sympathy, I'm talking plain old self-interest.
Because 13,000 more unemployed will be 13,000 more competing for what open jobs there are. Knowing that there are 13,000 more desperate workers, companies will adjust the salaries they offer at whatever openings there are.
Furthermore, the same amount of work, or more, is going to be done at IBM Europe (unless they are closing a division, which I'm not aware of in this case). That means the standard job at IBM will either be that more intense or require more of that wonderful unpaid overtime. That also changes the job market, as other companies will begin to expect that same work load out of you.
Even if you work over here, as I do, better believe that conditions in other countries effect the job market here. Can you say India?
It's the prisoner's dilema. Remember your game theory? You succeed together, or you both fail. That's what the job market does when it's moved by the invisible hand job. Said invisible hand job being the result of decisions like these by IBM management.
. This sig unintentionally left blank. I meant to put something here, but I'm busy.
Actually unions are important, otherwise we will run again into manchester capitalism at its worst, but the main problem is that unions used to be effective, but are not anymore because they only act on a local scale, they need to act globally nowadays, companies do, unions do not. A local strike only causes a laughter, a global strike really could hurt.
By comparison Google had a gross profit of 1.73B last quarter, with a couple thousand employees.
While IBM is doing fine, it's NOT very efficient these days.
The Raven
Because their corporate charter is a social contract, issued in the expectation of receiving some societal benefit, like employment for citizens.
Is IBM laying off everybody in Europe?
Not in Europe. They actually retained some ideals from the Enlightenment, beyond their immediate usefulness in fomenting rebellion. You know, things like human rights come before other considerations, like profits.
If a lifelong job with IBM is now a human right then where do I sign up? I'm not much for big companies but you can't beat the job security of an ethically mandated JOB FOR LIFE.
Not in Europe. They actually retained some ideals from the Enlightenment, beyond their immediate usefulness in fomenting rebellion. You know, things like human rights come before other considerations, like profits.
Your comments about Europeans retaining concepts like human right from the Enlightenment would have been more credible if not for the recently practiced concepts suchs as communism, fascism, racism, etc. Your view of history is quite seclective. Please do not interpret this as a slam against Europeans. My ancestors are from various parts of Europe, I've enjoyed visiting, and I've enjoyed meeting relatives. However history is history and everyone has their darker moments.
I'm one of those torn citizens of the UK wedged between crazy euro farm subsidies and the US capitalist pigs ;) I like to think a balanced a approach is possible.
I don't think it is a good idea to subsidise a loss making aspect of a country or a company indefinately but obviously the pros and cons should be weighed up and people should be offered alternative roles and retrained where at all feasible.
If for economic reasons IBM is outsourcing jobs to india they should look at what the european work force can offer that india cannot and consider retraining where possible as this will be cheaper than re-recruiting over the next few years. Also in some european countries legal action could be taken if IBM finds themselves trying re-recruit for the same jobs at lower salary levels.
Ultimately if these people don't have suitable skills for the region in which they work then they should retrain. If they stay at IBM and IBM doesn't offer retraining then they get fired in 5 years time they will be in an even worse situation as IBM will have sheltered them from the realities of the job market.
Although it seems incredibly harsh there may be some morale arguments in favour of a large cut if they fear the alternative is gradual cuts over several years. No one works well when they think their job is on the line every month.
I often wonder in these massive union/company disputes - does the company ever approach the unions *first* to discuss these kind of issues?
In the spirit of comparing european salaries to US, one must consider the current strength of the euro in relation to the dollar. European jobs are more advantageous to cut for an american firm simply by virtue of the exchange rate.
No, but I just resigned from a nicely paying job for the unethical behavior of management (such as stealing GPL code and not publishing the cutsom patches to their clients, especially when they relabeled other people's code as their own proprietary project.
I'm taking a pay cut leaving and going to another job, but I expect the company to fold within six months and avoiding liability for their misuses.
Unions are like big complainers. I hate complainers. I mean, unions have their place, but that place is not to bully companies around. That place is to ensure fair wages and treatment for employees.
My head hurts at the sheer ignorance displayed. Like, you actually have to think logically for a living, and you can't see the contradiction above? Sheesh.
How do you think "fair wages" are be ensured without "bullying" companies around? Read up on the history of the labor movement. Enjoy the long list of things your "complainers" brought you: pay for overtime work, pay for hazardous work, the standard 40 hour work week, medical benefits, pension plans, OSHA, NLRB, child labor laws, unemployment insurance, air conditioned work areas. But hey, I'm sure management will listen to a reasonable argument if someone as smart as you puts it forth, right?
Suppose that a company uses technology perfectly and has perfect innovation. What is going to be their #1 production cost? Hmmm....labor. Even in a company of 1, with 100% automation driven by solar power and nano-whatever, the highest cost will still be labor. Yet -- just like in the 1780's -- the CEO of this perfect company will constantly complain about unsustainable labor costs. One Fortune-100 company of today can produce more than an entire nation could in 1780, yet the arguments about labor have not changed a bit in 200 years: it costs too much, we can't compete.
Back on topic: did you ever think that those 10,000 just might in fact have every reason to believe that they are critical to normal operations? That their 40 hours/week are put to good use, and they can easily quantify their contribution to the bottom line? That maybe the majority of them have excellent performance reviews?
Ethical behavior? Are you kidding me? First off, WHOSE ethics? That's an entirely subjective matter. More importantly, we're talking about a company here. If they don't do what is best for them, from a purely monetary standpoint, then very bad things will happen. There's this thing called compettition. We all enjoy its benefits (better, cheaper things) but it's flipside is that if you can't do what's best for your bottom line, then you will be put out of business by somebody who is. So if you are IBM, you can keep those unneeded 13K employees around today, but them and the rest of your hundreds of thousands of other employees will all be out of business tomorrow. Similarly, if my employer can get the same things done by terminating me or by replacing me with somebody in India or China, or by replacing me with a machine, the my employer should do this. It may suck for me, but so what? I have no "right" to employment. I didn't get into this business looking for a handout.
I hope most of the people fired are from France. There is a big shortage of available technology workers here, and 10,000 job cuts from IBM will help my business tremendously in acquiring skilled people.
I often wonder in these massive union/company disputes - does the company ever approach the unions *first* to discuss these kind of issues?
This is your best point. So often these decisions are presented as a "done deal". Why is there no flexibility and room for negotiation? Perhaps the IBM staff would be willing to take a 10% pay cut. I've heard of it happening in other companies (Agilent).
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
FYI, Intel has not laid of employees for years and years (1983 I think?). Intel is an extremely well-managed company. When they need to reduce workforce, they have done so by attrition (not replacing people when they leave). Now, if you are talking about Applied Materials or most other semiconductor companies, that is true. They will spend like mad when things are good, and inflate their employee numbers with dead weight. Then when the cycle turns down, they dump these people on their asses.
Their union should invest their pension plan in mutual funds that own IBM stock. Then they'd be owners, and the company might listen to them. Especially if firing them meant they might dump all their shares, sending IBM's price down. That would, of course, hurt the union, but the union would be diversified through the different funds, multiplying their power by joining with all the other owners, too. Labor strike brinksmanship would change to equity strike brinksmanship. And actually be based in laws and economics the corporation can't really ignore.
--
make install -not war
You make a lot of noise, and then propose random bullshit.
How about profits be restricted
Hundreds of thousands of corporations world-wide already do this. It's called "Non-Profit". If every corporation was required to be non-profit, you'd be amazed at what would happen to our economy. Microsoft's hundreds of millions of dollars in cash reserves on hand? It'd be spent, generating more technology, more business, more jobs... you can see several other multi-billion dollar companies that just seem to exist to hoard cash, who are doing no-one a favor.
"I have been overwhelmed by the quality of the people who work there" Isn't that sweet.
"Let's have argument, not invective."
Frankly, I'm tired of arguing these things over and over. At some point you just have to say, "keep your delusions if you want them but don't tell me what I can and can't do, if you know what's good for you." Since you seem like a nice guy, though, I'll counter offer. Forget your argument. Let's both look for the truth.
Let's start with this: "Wealth is limited by virtue of us living on a planet of limited resource that's hard to leave. Happiness and ideas do not suffer from such limitations." First things first. Define terms and state assumptions. What do you think 'wealth' is. Seriously. Is it gold? Bits of paper with numbers? Something people will trade for or make an effort to get? Do writers produce wealth? Singers? Painters? Yoga Instructors? If I am paying a prostitute for sex every week, is the total wealth of the world the same or greater after each exchange? What if we get married and she stops charging me. Does global wealth decrease? Even if we're both happier? If wealth is not tied to human happiness, what use is it? I suspect you have bought into a zero-sum game, philosophy that I'd suggest you carefully re-examine. I suspect you'll be less enamored with wealth redistribution and more focused on wealth creation if you defined wealth in a more modern way. Maybe not. But we obviously aren't meaning the same thing when we use the word "wealth."
""Pursuit of an efficient workplace deserves punishment? Inefficiency will make society better?" At the cost of the host nation, yes. Efficiency at the expense of your friends is wrong. Or perhaps you have no friends"
Aw, I thought you didn't want invective. Well, I'll let it slide. Isn't India a "host nation" too. Isn't failing to give jobs to Indians that offer a better deal in order to give preferential treatment to Europeans doing a disservice to India as a host nation? How do you pick which host nations you should screw your customers and/or business partners to give benifits too? I'm serious. Should you ask your customers to pay higher prices to avoid paying tax money and building the infrastructure of a totalitarian state? What if the choice is between two democracies, but you like the culture of one better? Personally I think India is just as good a host nation as those in Europe or N. America. What makes you prefer European ones? Is that objective?
BTW, I have friends. But business is business. Whenever my friends do business, we are very careful to spell out specifically what the terms are. We don't want a disagreement over to either hurt the friendship, or force one of us to suffer economic losses out of a sense of loyalty. I wouldn't want my friends to buy a product from me at a higher price; I would want my friends to get a good deal. IBM doesn't have friends; it is a company. But the investors and the customers of IBM do. Do you expect one of both of them to suffer economic losses out of a sense of friendship to the people who work in the European IBM facilities? If so, are the European IBM workers really friends, or are they just manipulative jerks playing the "friends" card for their own benifit? Isn't that cronyism? What if IBM's customers and/or investors have friends all over the world? Why shouldn't they. Do you think EUians are the only ones who deserve friends? Personally, I think that it is dangerous to confuse business with friendship or relations. I'm not saying don't do business with friends, btw. I'm saying don't expect cronyism or nepotism, and spell out everyone's obligations and payments very carefully. Do you still think this is a matter of IBM investors and/or customers taking unfair advantage of their friends?
While we're on definitions and assumptions:
What do you mean by "nation." Do you mean society? Or do you mean government?
Do you think something that the words "ethical" and "legal" are equivalent? Do
Let's say you have stock in IBM, maybe not bought right out but as part of something like a 401k retirement fund. You're counting on that fund to build as large and fast as it possibly can for a comfortable old age. You receive a letter in the mail, as a shareholder, explaining that IBM needs your help making a decision.
Even though they've been acceptably profitable in recent quarters, IBM has determined that it's in their best business interest to cut 12,000+ jobs. They could want to do it for any number of reasons: newly discovered efficiency, poor localized market performance, wanting to exit a portion of the market, or simply because they *want to*. This move would contribute to the financial wealth and/or stability of IBM, therefore potentially increasing their stock value and by extension your fund.
Or, they can continue to employ those 12,000+ people... just because they can. Even though they've concluded that they're unneeded for whatever reason, you could tell IBM to keep it up at the expense of your retirement.
Quite simply, what do you honestly think most people are going to tell IBM to do?
How about this: IBM becomes extremely profitable, and discovers that they're able to stay that way without hiring new people. Should they hire new people anyway based on the idea that they can afford it? Of course not. So why should they keep people employed just to keep people employed?
I'm against picketing, but I don't know how to show it.
Luke, help me take this mask off
There is/was a view out there that somehow you could do things like raise your kids while simultaneously working in a holistic fairyland where you live and work in the same place.
The view that people are desparately clinging to isn't some weird crap like this, though there was certainly a period of time where telecommuting was in vogue.
The view they want is "I Matter". They want to be in positions where they are irreplacable. They want to be recognized for that special thing they bring into the company. They want that special thing to bring them fame and fortune.
Unfortunately, in reality people don't matter. Labor is replacable. Skills are replacable. Everyone from the lowest position even to the CEO is merely a cog, spinning in place until they wear out and another cog comes along close enough in shape that a few turns wears it down to a correct match. CxOs are certainly larger cogs, but even executives turn in their own dance to their own tune, and even though their steps aren't familiar to the smaller cogs, one misstep can still lead to replacement.
Wouldn't you rather believe the first? That someone out there other than your direct family cares about you, not merely how well the machine turns this quarter?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
We now have a 37 hour work week, and 5 week of paid vacation.
The last (like most previous) extra week of paid vacation was due to a general strike. It basically shut down our country for a few weeks, but most people in Denmark were supportive of the strike.
As an employer (owning part of a company employing some employees) I guess I am supposed to oppose this. But I am also employed by the company I own a part of, so I also gain the advantages.
You can't really talk about "taxes in Europe". That doesn't make sense because taxes is out of the EU's jurisdiction, and there's MASSIVE discrepancies between the countries within the EU, never mind outside it.
Having said that taxes ARE huge in France, Germany, Italy... So , yeah, okay "in Europe".
However, what you're talking about is not hidden. It's all there on your payslip - more on that later...
If you're looking for hidden taxes, look at the health system in the US. Before somebody chimes in about welfare state this, communist that, I'm not arguing here that one system is better than the other. The life expectancy is pretty much the same on either side of the Atlantic, and up north in Canada and that's that. However, in Europe, nobody needs to sue to have somebody pay their medical bill, no money is wasted on lawyers, or medical personnel making you sign a contract before treatment... or consultation! That's what I mean by hidden taxes.
Now, the real problem in "Europe" is the monstrous bureaucracy. Here in Ireland my payslip is 8 lines - I got one today. That includes pension, health care, welfare, income tax, everything. In France it would take a fucking A4. Money goes all over the place to various agencies doing god knows what. Of course this means that people have to manage that stuff: write the law, write software to help do it, type the forms, look for fraud, the list goes on. In the end that's a whole lot of money spent for absolutely *no* work being done. That's what's hidden. And that's the real brake.
If you tell somebody who wants to start a business he has to pay even 80% tax on the payroll, that's huge, but if it's just one 80%, always, one check to one agency, and you get value for money, it might hurt the free market in you and me, but that would be okay. If it's 100 laws, statutes, whatever, to digest, 10 checks to write and then you're fined because you forgot an obscure one, even if the average is 30 to 40%, people won't even try. There's an article in The Economist this week (p 30, dead tree), that says it costs $306 to setup a business in France. Not expensive, now, is it? Pocket money! The catch is it also take 8 (eight!) days! For fuck's sake, what untold amount of paperwork do you have to fill in? Who with? And trust me, it gets much worse after you start growing. Companies are actually refusing business because of the unknowns of getting bigger!
That's the real drag on this Europe you're talking about.
I'm not. The writing's on the wall. If you have to fire one employee, given a choice of one who will only work 35 hours a week and 10 or 11 months a year and has a union that demands raises annually regardless of individual performance, versus someone who'll work 45-50+ hours a week without being asked, 50 weeks a year, and only expects a performance based bonus if anything...it's hardly even a choice. An executive wouldn't be doing due diligence to the shareholders to hang on to the former employee at the expense of the latter one.
The Europeans have priced themselves into obsolescence as workers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The second thing to remember is that the operational basis of for profit, liability limited companies and corporations is minimising risk to shareholder return by externalising it.
Or simply put "A corporations first loyalty is to profit and considers only minimising risk of losing profit"
For example if the projected amount of available work over the next, say two years, is in decline or an indian/chinese outsourcing option is available then the directors are legally bound to maintain profitability (for the next 8 quarters), shed 13000 workers and let the former employees shoulder that risk (and also all citizens through unemployment benefits paid) - it's has nothing to do with thier ability, it's all about externalising risk.
If something changed that risk equation, for example the government of EU imposed a "mass unemployment levy" where the company had to contribute some percentage of the projected unemployment benefits to the government then the decision may be different as the risk to profit equation changes.
It's situations like these that illustrate one of the many flaws in the first industrial revolution. All employees suffer the same threats (not just IT workers) where first world countries with established pay and working conditions are now competing with third world countries that do not have those conditions. Implementation of free (mercantile in reality) trade agreement's do not include creating the same legal framework for third world workers that exists for first world workers.
The downside of all this is that it is inevitable that working conditions in first world countries will continue to deteriorate until the contracts that make global trade possible factor in those conditions. This decision is another symptom of that problem.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
A person who has worked at an executive level for even a relatively short period of time can comfortably live the rest of their life without ever have to work again (or, if they can't, they don't deserve to).
The same cannot be said for the average grunt worker.
I don't mind people being paid what they're worth, per se, but there's no way any "executive" is worth a wage 100s to 1000s times that of the people who actually keep the wheels of the machine turning. The CEO remuneration orgy is no different from politicians who vote themselves pay rises every year, and should be treated as such.
I'm not a huge fan of government intervention, but the state of executive remuneration packages, coupled with treatment of the average employee has passed into "obscene" territory.
On another note...
The employee's at my company cost roughly 1.3 times their salary.
That's actually pretty damn impressive, usually the "cost" of an employee is closer to 2 or 3x their actual wage.
You are running the government of a third world nation, you can choose to grow food for your people or cash crops for export. You also need machine guns and helicopters to ensure that you will never need to face an election because sure as hell you don't have a mandate. Since your country does not have the necessary manufacturing capability to supply you with decent military hardware you must shop around on the international market and you will need some cash crops for export. Oh well, guess the food isn't so important after all.
Individual farmers are likely not to be in agreement with your choice of priorities but none of those individual farmers own the land they are working on. The land is owned by large businesses, most of which you have shares in. Those business are managed partly by your extended family and partly by imported managers from the countries that are selling you military hardware. These foreign managers have explained to you why you also need to export 80% of your mineral resources as well. If the farmers get too annoying we call them rebels or radicals or communists and we put those helicopters and machine guns to work.
By the way, just in case you were thinking about saving money and buying less guns than you need, it happens to be known that an "investment" company is willing to provide an extended credit contract to assist the opposition party in the purchase of said military hardware...
Don't bother looking this up in your economics textbook, they don't bother making mathematical abstractions for this one. Of course economics always makes the most efficient decision, but who gets to decide what is efficient?
First off, Europe is not one country with identical rules. I live and work in Sweden and we have 40 hour weeks. There are weeks when I work more than that, and not many that I work less. OTOH I get paid for the overtime I put in. That seems somewhat optional in the US (re articles about working at EA studios).
In addition to my long vacation each year, when I get childen I have the opportunity to take time off work to spend time with them during their first years.
Besides it would be interesting to see some research regarding if more than 40 hours work week 50 weeks a year actually produces more in the long run. I do kind of doubt it.
Life is short and it shouldn't be wasted on holiday. It should be spent with family first and at work on something meaningful second.
God forbid that you should spend you holiday or extra time off with your family.
Currently economics is limited since it only place value on the bottom line. There is no concept of getting more work out of your employees since they are not over-worked and content with their life. I'm sure the rest of the world will catch up to European life-standards sooner or later.
The US is full of hidden local & state taxes that can really addd up, that of course never get counted because they're not universal nation wide. Do any sort of transaction in the US & it always worked out higher than the agreed price because all of a sudden these state 'n county fees, surcharges & taxes pop up from nowhere. Even things like a county road surcharge & a state emissions surcharged added to cab fares in some places. Then there's the local land taxes to fund local public schools (that can vary by a huge degree between even 2 neihbouring satalite towns with similar socio-economic mixes), where as in the rest of the world public schools are mostly simply funded directly from consilidated revenue of the national treasury.
Ontop of which employers in the US have to pay for the employees healthcare insurance, in a country with the highest health costs in the world, both per capita & as a percentage of GDP, both by a significant margin than anywhere else too. Where as in much of Europe employees healthcare is covered again by consilidated revenue of the national treasury.
This is what differentiates European and (traditional, although changing) US beliefs. In the US you have the right to pursue happiness, not the right to happiness. There's a critical distinction there. In the US you have the right to work and that does not extend to the guarantee of a job. Bluntly put in the American psyche: It's the owners' company and the E-class was put into position to execute in the best interest of the owners, NOT the employees. Because .... the owners OWN the company. By virtue of working FOR them, you have at -some level- subjugated yourself to their decisions, which inevitably revolve around how to make the owners happy. Such level of subjugation of course depends on cultural norms and legal process and THAT is where the European model is different than the American model.
Europeans feel they have a right to continue working for a company once they have been hired. Which is why new jobs are far more uncommon in Europe than in America. This is because it is far harder to get cut jobs in Europe than in America. In almost every manner that I have ever seen (and I have spent a 3rd of my life in Europe), European companies and their governments are FAR less flexible than their American counterparts. They tend to favor equity and process whereas the American system tends to favor flexibility and results.
Here's what it comes down to: America respects and rewards risk takers. Europe (by and large) wants to look after the little guy. Here's a case in point: In America the corporate cleaning crews go to work after I'm done my day. In my European experience, they have always been working a 9-5 and based on my American way of thinking, they get in my way ... I do not like hearing a vacuum running while I'm trying to work, it's disruptive. When this happens, my European co-workers don't have a problem, they go take a coffee break. This whole scenario would never fly in an American office (of the type I work in).
-Spot
I agree with you about the laughable statement quoted: All unions do today is drive a wedge between employees and management. That wasn't even true at the time of the birth of trades unionism in England when the boss was known to all and wore a big black hat just in case you weren't sure. Further, management themselves are usually in professional unions in Europe, the problem is defence from the boardroom and faceless institutional shareholders whose only contact with the corporation is a cell in their spreadsheet and by definition care only about the bottom line. Health & safety and the implementation of national laws aren't things they care anything at all about.
I think what people in the US object to is the "closed shop". The fact its American synonym is "union shop" speaks volumes. Simply outlaw the closed shop (or if its already outlawed then actively impose the law) and problem solved. Workers representation without the perversions and excesses of American tradesunionism which is barely recognisable as the same thing we have here in the UK. I support trades unions but I must say what I read from the US is a bit shocking (the crap as regards teamsters and construction workers especially). Thats not trades unionism, thats mob rule at the behest of another boss you have to obey. It could be certain unions will need, frankly, dealing with. Thatcher did this in the 1980s in the UK. Its not nice but it can be done.
Plays violent online games as: Nerfherder76
Shareholders like pension funds, university endowments, and widows and orphans.
You do neglect the fact that other than pension funds, the items on your list hold virtually no stock at all (compared to the total value of the market).
The vast majority of stock is held by people who individually make well over $100,000 per year.
The pension funds are of course the exception, but if you ask a worker which he would rather have - his 401k savings or a guaranteed job for life, he'd pick the latter. Collectively 401k's are still large, but most workers they make up only a small part of their total earnings.
If you give a billionare a choice of losing his stock or losing his salary, he'd drop his salary in a heartbeat.
If you give almost any other person picked randomly off the street the same choice they'd drop their stock in a heartbeat.
This is why anything which is good for stockholders isn't necessarily great for America - at least not directly.
Don't get me wrong, investment has all kinds of benefits to the general public. However, the whole "most people own stock" argument is really a falicious one. "Most people" would throw away their stock in an instant if it kept them from losing their jobs...