Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant

Re:Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant by bluGill on Wednesday March 29, 2017 @01:14PM (#13988433)

A "smart" union needs to consider the health of the company. If they get a salary of $1million per yer for each employee it is obvious that no company cannot afford the salary and will go out of business in a few months and all employees get 0 after that until they find a new job. (This is a strawman argument, but it makes the point clear) A union that is smart should force the company to do things that will keep the company in business.

Note that unions, management, and investors are often not smart. This is often to their long term harm.

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Re:Audi's unions demand electric model for main German plant by masklinn on Wednesday March 29, 2017 @01:26PM (#13988553)

> Note that unions, management, and investors are often not smart.

And that's an important point, because a "smart union" only works if management doesn't try to railroad them at every turn. It's not exactly surprising that e.g. US Unions had to be hard rather than smart, given management or investors would call the army on them.

In the nordic model, unions are part of corporate governance and thus can have significant stake in and impact on corporate policy, in the US unions are considered pests to be squashed and only listened to when there's literally no other way.

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