Yes, that was my point #1, above. They don’t want ‘cheap-labor American plants’ that undercut them and cause work to be shipped overseas.
Half the board - not quite “controlled.” The other half is shareholders.
But really? You’re saying Volkswagen wants its own products not to compete well?
And if they wanted to charge more for their products, they could just do it. They don’t need a union to force them to.
Heck, if they fear competition from their own company’s overseas business, why do they even have it? Why don’t they just shut down VW in the US?
Can you please come up with something a little less convoluted?
That would kinda puts a monkey wrench in the whole “U.S. unions are responsible for forcing U.S. manufacturers to send jobs overseas for cheap labor” meme.
Why would you think that? I mean, are there facts that support your thinking that, or did you just decide to think it? Because it isn’t true, or accurate, or based on any kind of reality.
Making shit up is not a valid argument and does not classify as “data”.
Exactly.
It doesn’t matter what you say anyway - all I have to do is say “some people refuse to see the truth right in front of them” or some other empty nonsense. You taught me that.
Don’t get your panties in a bunch. (Actually your link does a good job of explaining it, but this oneis more informative.).
The Supervisory Board has 20 members. Half of those members (that’s 10) are employee representatives (that’s the “German Labor Union” coponent I reference).
The other half is “shareholder representatives.” But, 2 of those members are appointed by the government of Lower Saxony (that’s the “local German government” part).
So, when I say “the Volkswagen board is controlled by representatives of either the German labor unions or the local German government.” I mean that 12 seats on a 20 person board constitute a majority (also “control”).
The notion that both of those groups have an incentive to keep jobs in Germany is my opinion, but you’re going to be hard pressed to convince me that it “isn’t true, or accurate, or based on any kind of reality.”
Especially since all the deaths at Haymarket were due solely to the police?
It’s like Melchior went out of hir way to get it exactly backwards.
Only if you assume the 2 local government-appointed members are always allied with labor. But they are shareholder seats - the local government appoints them because it is a shareholder in the company. So you can’t quite say that labor controls the board. Labor has exactly half the seats.
And your theory assumes that VW is competing with itself. I don’t know how they work, but often, foreign automakers with North American plants ship to North American markets only, and Europe’s customers get cars from plants there (which is one reason they have North American plants - to save on shipping). There would be no advantage to making U.S.-made cars more expensive - it would only hurt them when competing against other manufacturers.
And if you think VW’s board actually does want its own plant in the U.S. to fail, why not just shut it down?
Well, yeah. Spend a few hours reading his posts and you’ll see.
It depends. Germany is not a ‘cheap labor’ country. In fact, it may have the highest labor costs in the world, which is why German goods tend to be usually among the best and most expensive. Only the finest goods can justify the highest labor costs. It makes no sense to make cheap goods in a high-labor-cost environment.
The ‘American’ jobs that are being sent overseas are to low-wage countries. Even Japanese companies are doing that, sending camera production out of Japan to China and other east Asian countries.
So, the Germans (labor, government and management) have an interest in not losing work. The best thing for them is for these plants to represent opportunities for business growth and efficiency without losing work in Germany.
I believe that there is a ‘Volkswagen law’ which prevents any attempt to take over the company by foreigners. Read all about it here:
So shouldn’t we just support labor unions in cheap labor countries too, like you say Germany is doing in the U.S.?
Don’t you think a world in which workers make about the same and therefore compete equally is better if it means workers are paid more, rather than all of them being paid less and less and less? Don’t you think that’s better for the world economy too, since workers buy the produces they build?
I’m not assuming the first thing and I didn’t say the second thing. I said that control of the board belongs to representatives of either labor or the government. I can say that. Becuase it’s true.
And I’m not assuming that they’re always “allied with labor.” All I said was that both labor and government have an interest in keeping jobs in Germany (and therefore in making it expensive to operate elsewhere). Do I think it possible when the two factions will align when they have interests in common? Yes.
That, however, is an assumption that I am making. I am assuming that VW might be able to “ship jobs overseas” to the expense of “jobs at home.” I don’t know if that’s right. I could be convinced that that is a flaw in my reasoning (although it ends up being a little bit more complicated than “shipping” cars overseas or not or competing in any particular market, becuase the question would be where they would expand).
I don’t think that I think they want it to fail. I don’t think that being unionized will guarantee a company or factory to fail. I’m not sure why you do.
anarchists and socialists caused all the trouble
Reality suggests otherwise. Paul Avrich’s book is a good start.
There’s also The Battle of Blair Mountain, where strong-arm tactics by agents of the mine owners resulted in armed resistance. Agents of the mine owners dropped gas and explosive bombs on the miners from private aircraft, and a leader of the strikers and a good friend of his were assassinated by mine agents on the courthouse steps.
So what you meant was that “the Volkswagen board is controlled by representatives of BOTH the German labor unions AND the local German government”. Okay, so your poor choice of words seems to have set back your argument a bit, at least in making your thoughts clearly understood. Regardless, it’s all fantasy from your own head and not supported by reality.
Lemme tell you a little about German labor law: In 1976, significant revisions were made to Germany’s Mitbestimmungsgesetz ( Co-Determination Act). Board default size was increased from 11 to 20 members. German law limits the role of workers’ reps to slightly less than half the board (in VW’s case its 10 of 20 seats), so the notion that they control anything is ridiculous, unless you have some evidence to present showing otherwise. And before you start formulating other ridiculous notions, know that management is ALWAYS in control of the company: German law specifically gives the right to cast a tie-breaking vote to the Chairman of the Supervisory Board, and by law the Chairman must be a shareholder representative. So even tho half the board is worker reps, they have slightly less than half the votes available.
Also, your attempt to include government reps with the workers is false; they are shareholder reps. If they are sympathetic to some of the things that workers want, well, that’s what Boards and Committees are all about: negotiating for consensus on projects, policies and purposes.
Germany is not the United States, and to assume that their workplace culture, laws and practices are similar to ours is foolish; they do not have the same mutually antagonistic attitudes between workers and management that our culture has. Your scenario posits American attitudes and values without showing any evidence that they come into play at all.
No, it’s not true. And you keep mis-stating your own argument. There is simply no way for 10 workers reps to control the Board; they don’t have enough votes, since the Chairman gets to cast a deciding vote in the case of a tie.
And I’d be really curious to see your reasoning for how 2 shareholder representing the government of Lower Saxony could possibly control the Board with only their two votes.
However, as I noted in my previous post, what you must mean, in order for your assertion even begin to make sense, is that the workers AND the government shareholder reps, working together, control the Board. The burden is on you to support your assertion, or you can simply admit that you’re doing the same as friend Melchior: making shit up.
Don’t forget about the Ford Hunger March:
Or the Battle of the Overpass
There is no equivalence in the violence perpetrated by employers, using the muscle of the state, in the violence that unionists committed. If you wish to match stories of violence, which I’ve done previously in union threads on this board, you will quickly find yourself buried under the corpses of not just workers, but also their wives and children, murdered by employers.
And dozens of other similar incidents where management violently attacked workers.
But some people are willfully blind.