They are never mandatory, however employees do have the right to form one if there are at least five employees who are eligible to vote (18+) and if at least three of those can be elected (>6 months with the company, broadly speaking no one in an important management role).
At least three employees have to take the initiative and call for an election and that can often be quite scary, to be honest. Because appalling rhetoric like here from N26 is not uncommon when that happens. Often these employers also try to (even pre-emptively) form their own unofficial employee council (like is the case here), however that has to be seen with a heavy dose of skepticism, since ultimate power of how such unofficial councils function and whether they can exist at all still rests with the employer. Unlike the Worker Councils they are not protected by the law.
Worker councils cannot be abolished by the employers, their rights cannot be taken away by the employer. The employer has not control over them. That’s their power.
That doesn’t really change that I’m currently still too scared to actually form one at the company I work for, even though I would very much like for it to exist. It still feels like painting a target on your back, even though Germany does not have at-will employment and you certainly cannot be fired or blocked or even just so much as reprimanded for wanting a form a Worker Council.
If there's one good thing that's gonna come out of the idiotic attempts by the N26 management to stop this, I hope it's bringing more awareness to the fact that "Betriebsräte" are even a thing that exists.
Second step is getting help in actually creating one, and I'm hoping that ver.di (and other unions! IG Metall has been active in this space recently too.) will step up and provide guidance and support for this.
Isn't it common knowledge? 40% of employees work in companies with a worker council, it's pretty much the default for large enterprises.
I think it's pretty accurate regarding career effect. Worker Council members are generally much more union-involved, which employers obviously don't like too much. On the other hand: as long as you're a member of the worker council, you can essentially not get fired at all (short of being caught stealing or physically attacking people) so it's a stable career in itself, though rather like working for the government: you won't get to the highest heights, but you'll also not have to work too hard or fear for your job in an economic downturn.
Among german-native workforce? Probably. Among the huge swaths on immigrants in Berlin's startup scene? Absolutely not.
At one of my previous employers there was a failed attempt to form a worker council. The 3 employees were all fired after being in the company for many years. Management basically put them under constant surveillance and recorded every tiny slip-up.
Since there was no majority they couldn't form a work council.
but being a works council member myself I can assure you that even the best employers can have very subtle ways. Works council members from different companies talk and some stories are outright scary.
In the company I work for some join the (Dutch) Works Council just to get ahead in their career. They often join until they're promoted. It's a huge international shipping company.
Active Betriebsrat here. Do it if you have a couple of like minded co-workers. If you need any assistance contact the nearest union - verdi should be the best guess if you're in tech.
Best of luck!
Are you in Netherlands or in Germany? I'm part of a Dutch Works Council. I completely disagree with the statement that Dutch and German Works Councils are similar. A German Works Council is has loads of rights that a Dutch Works Council does not have. It basically deals with way more things/
If a Works Council is appreciated often depends not so much on the company, it's also depends on whom are represented by the company. The
Regarding N26: already a Dutch Works Council can easily take the company to court whereby the company itself has to fund the costs. Meaning, company has to pay the lawyers fees. Similarly, the Works Council can also spend company money on getting advice from e.g. a lawyer. As a German Works Council is usually _way_ more powerful than the Dutch one I find this situation funny. It's the times where we advice the company to be careful with German Works Council (e.g. a change affecting at least Netherlands and Germany), the advice is not taken seriously, an in an update 6 - 12 months later they'll confirm that they underestimated the German Works Council.
From what I heard, German Works Council is involved with new vacancies, the hiring process, hiring a German vs anyone else, salary, etc. They can also force the company to fill up a vacancy (e.g. a vacancy due to someone leaving).
In the company I work for a Works Council is appreciated; it's not something they do because there's a law requiring it.
Evaluation records that don't reflect the actual work, mobbing, surveys where the "majority" states the company is best without one,...
There are lawyers specialized in helping management,
https://www.kanzlei-hasselbach.de/2016/kuendigung-betriebsra...
Most interestingly compared to US, if you need to lay off people you need to lay of your employees in order of most junior to most senior (seniority in terms of time they have been with the company)
Americans be like: "Shock! Awe! How would anyone ever hire an employee under such a requirement?!"
(Meanwhile Netherlands unemployed rate is ~ 4.3%, and the US one at ~10 - and the latter with lots of under-reporting, e.g. people giving up looking for a job, and so on).
Is that not the case in NL?
At least here in Germany, the government uses a lot of tricks to make the number smaller (we call it "Schönrechnen", calculating in a way to make a number look better)
A little, but nothing like the US.
The Dutch government is at least as skilled as making its people believe things are going well. Its a actually a bit of a rabbit hole, just like it is for Americans.
> The Dutch government is at least as skilled as making its people believe things are going well. Its a actually a bit of a rabbit hole, just like it is for Americans.
I think that’s most governments in general, sadly.
To be fair this is not a very good comparison due to the European focus on job retention schemes vs the American focus on expanded unemployment insurance and stimulus cheques during the pandemic.
This is effectively how the unemployment rate is counted in the US too: you have to be actively looking for a job (be a jobseeker) to be counted in the unemployment rate.
There are millions of people who are no longer jobseekers for whatever reason. Most often it is due to becoming more and more demoralized/demotivated (Americans statistically, adjusted for population, have this problem by far the worst of the entire developed world), having a legal record that makes a person virtually unemployable (we lock up our citizens at a higher rate than anyone else in the world), people having to be full-time caretakers for a family member (due to a lack of proper and adequately funded social insurance), disabled people trying to get benefits for several years—and often failing (Of the developed world, only in South Korea is it harder to claim disability benefits: this really says a lot because the perception around disability in Asia, but especially Southeast Asia is deplorable).
They are not comparable. In the Netherlands and Germany it feels like the only employees who make good money are management. Engineers are never going to be rich from working as engineers. The only way to make it is to break into management, and the odds are against you.
The main reason why software engineers in the US make more on average are the FAANG companies and VC backed startups that pay insane salaries for their employees, primarily in the Bay Area with extremely high cost of living.
I don't think an entry level Google engineer making $120k living in the Bay Area can afford a better lifestyle than me making €60k (before taxes) living in Germany.
There are a lot of reasons to live and work in Germany, but money is not one of them.
Yeah, people seem to conflate base cash salary with total comp, which is very misleading. Sure, you start making $120k in base salary at google as a fresh grad, and you top out at around $150k as a senior engineer.
However, the total comp ends up being mostly covered by stock, which is what drives that senior engineer total comp to be more in the $400k-500k range. And even at the fresh grad level, I expect the total comp at Google to cross $200k/yr easily.
American standard of living (or lack thereof) vs Dutch standard of living.
Considering this, I wouldn't bother to compare the US vs Dutch salary:
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/23/most-americans-dont-have-the...
One problem is that this takes 40 years...
I see that as a benefit. Less inequality, less golden parachutes, the average person making a better living with better public services and benefits...
I could not care less for special salaries that only apply to a small percentage, when https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/23/most-americans-dont-have-the...
There are also places in Germany offering 2-3x that €65k in total comp for comparable roles as you see for the high salaries in the USA. Amazon Berlin, Google Munich etc.
Lol no :) more like 80k base and some stock for sde-2
Might still be worth it for the benefits, but it should be mentioned.
As I mentioned: it might still be worth it, but I really dislike this whole style of "look, everything is the same, only we have X, Y and Z". It's not, there are trade-offs. If somebody likes those trade-offs (e.g. better job security for lower compensation), then they'll prefer it that way, and that's completely valid. But to pretend that there are no trade-offs (that is: to only mention one side of the trade-offs) is misleading.
It is not (only) a matter of capacity, it is (also) a matter of culture/habits.
In fact, if you look at various European countries, that's funny, because house ownership rates kind of go the opposite way of average wealth/income per capita.
If you mean to say the inequality in NL or Germany is unreasonably high - sure! But the US is even less equal.
Edit: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/16/ceos-see-pay-grow-1000percen... also looks at older income inequalities, and the development is pretty stark.
What? US SWE don't make significantly more money than EU-based SWEs? That's news, I'd love to see sources.
In general, high earners earn more in the US, which includes both CEO's and SWE (but the point about how easy it is to fire people and about inequality was more general, not specifically about SWE).
Even most blue collar workers I know own their house.
For much better public services, benefits, access to health, etc...
>will usually not own a house etc.
The Netherlands have a higher home ownership than the US (67.8% vs 65.3%).
In particular circumstances, you have more security with a temporary contract.
Disclaimer : I am Dutch.
In which circumstances are those? If your temporary contract ends within 26 weeks you'll be selected _before_ anyone with a fulltime contract. This will depend on the way that the company tries to fire someone.
https://www.uwv.nl/werkgevers/werkgever-en-ontslag/ik-wil-on...
It is much easier for companies to let temporary contracts expire than start the actual process to get permission to fire employees.
If you want to fire someone on a temporary contract, you will have to pay him off.
That's not "will" it is "might". You can wait until their contract ends. You can also fire the person if they severely misbehaved (stealing.. though not just 0.03 EUR like someone at Action who took a shopping bag :-p).
Note that "fire" is often used in case of involuntary dismissal, so saying that they need to be paid off is weird if you use "fire".
On the other side I've worked for a larger financial services company more than a few years ago which would've really benefited from this sort of setup as the management was pretty callous in regards to when it got rid of employees or changed incentives at last second or diluted them severely.
A healthy organization should have one, in my opinion. Management being against it is an unhealthy sign.
Just so you have some context. a Works Council has the following rights:
Right to discuss: they will have a bi-yearly meeting with the employer, who will report to the employees the financial situation of the company
Right to give advise: (This is the one startups find scary). When a company wants to do an investment round or any action that has economical or organisational impact, they _must_ ask for advice from the Works Council. The employer _must_ take their advice into account. If he does not, there is a cool-down period of a month before the decisions comes into place. Within that month the employees can take the employer to court in Amsterdam to block the action. This basically means employees have the right to block investment rounds through court. The burden of proof is on the employee that this is not in interest of the company.
Right to vote: The WC has the right to vote on certain decisions regarding reduction of working hours or work conditions. Here the onus is turned around compared to the right to advise. The WC makes the decision, and the _employer_ has the right to countersue. This basically means the employees have the right to force the employer to court if they want to do a firing round. The employer's task is to prove in court that the firing round is needed by law.