> Profit sharing and equity grants

This works so long as the corporation doesn't try and muck around with how their profit is recorded. See "Hollywood Accounting" for examples of this in practice in union-using industries.

Most union members have fixed monthly expenses and limited cash reserves. A promise of profit sharing at some point in the future doesn't help when the rent is due tomorrow.

There is a long long history of trying this - most notably when UA became completely employee / union owned. However, once the initial ESOP period ended, the unions still ended up in a acrimonious battle with the (labor owned) board of directors. Then 9/11 occurred, the company collapsed (again) and went into bankruptcy.

I agree they align incentives, but there's a large degree of cynicism/skepticism and lack of understanding of how profit sharing is calculated among the workforce. I've worked places where the message that makes it to the represented employees is a far cry from what was presented in the union negotiations. E.g. The end employee thinks they're losing their pension when in reality, they're not, new employees wouldn't be getting a pension.

I talked with a guy who worked 42 years for the same company and was on the bargaining committee when a work stoppage occurred. He said they always thought the company kept two sets of books - the ones they showed the union and the actual books. Nevermind that he worked for a F500 company which was publicly traded at least half the time he worked there, and he worked for the largest facility in the company, driving much of the revenue for the company.

You also hear things about "the company going after tax write-off so they don't have to pay workers as much" when that write-off they're mad about is a standard cost of doing business deduction in the same way payroll is...the company is making a donation to a community organization or buying supplies, but they'd reduce their tax bill by just as much if they paid the money out to employees in the form of profit sharing, bonuses, or higher wages.

He is alleging that his own company is run like Enron? It isn’t impossible.

Non-profits are a way to buy political influence while getting a tax write-off.

Further, I'm keen to learn more about the German practice of having labor represented on corporate boards. They seem to have many fewer of these food fights.

Why?

What helps?

Expanding stakeholder participation, generous profit sharing, limiting CEO compensation, larger social safety net...?

If the labor board members don't act in the best interest of labor or are generally ineffective they can be removed by labor. Also, it's unlikely you'll have a labor dispute when half the boards is made up of labor elected officials.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codetermination_in_Germany