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If unions violate automakers, BMW and Mercedes Why So Rich.
When the 2008 financial crisis sent US automakers the edge of the precipice of failure, the Conservatives, including Mitt Romney, urged the Obama administration to let automakers go bankrupt neoconservatives blamed the high salaries paid to workers automotive unionized GM of disability, Ford and Chrysler to participate in his book the crash of 2016, author Thom Hartmann points out a flaw in the argument is the problem of high wages to American workers said.
In fact, Germany has paid their autoworkers about 67 one hour, including salary and benefits, but the United States paid the average worker only 33 after hours including salaries and benefits in addition to this, German carmakers were very profitable, despite the relatively large paychecks of their BMW workers earned a profit of 3 8 billion euros, and Mercedes-Benz pre-tax profits towed 4 6 billion euros.
So how Germany has just completely blow the myth that automakers must pay their workers less be more cost effective and producing more cars How Germany can pay their workers more front, more profitable, and make more cars.
First, the Germans completely democratized car factory in unionizing almost every single autoworker in the country under IG Metall, the German union auto workers with a union membership rate high, many autoworkers hold influence when they threaten to strike is how the workers were able to maintain high wages and good working conditions but as Horst Mund, head of the International Department of the German autoworkers union, noted, unions almost never go on strike in Germany because there is a complex system of conflict resolution is regularly used to come to the kind of compromise that is acceptable to all parties.
How Germany has just completely blow the myth that automakers must pay their workers less be more profitable and manufacture more cars.
One reason for more collaborative relationships between managers and workers is that, unlike the US, aren t the unions attacked and there aren t any right to work for less areas in Germany where carmakers can take the flight so that they can ignore the voice of organized labor.
Another and perhaps more powerful reason is that there is a constitutional amendment in Germany which requires business leaders to listen to unions The Constitution Act requires each factory work to set up a works council gives workers' representatives a seat at the table in all processes of decision making at the plant that is the democratization of capitalism, expanding the process of making decision not only the elite of the business but the whole society, from bottom to top.
This, according to Mund, is the real reason why the union autoworkers has a strong voice in the German economy Pointing to the contradictory relationship between employers and unions in America, Mund said, the accusation that American unions are most radical and destructive certainly has to do with the hostile environment in which unions must act How can they be constructive and friendly if their asses are expelled all the time, he continued by saying that without the Constitution Act, work in Germany, employers would not talk to us or if they had a choice.
But next to the intentions, empowering unions in Germany and the democratization of the workplace through a constitutional amendment applied was an economic boon for Germany, as evidenced car sales, employee salaries and profitability.
As Mund concludes, we have strong unions, we have strong social security systems, we have high salaries So if I believed that the neo-liberals argue, we should be bankrupt, but apparently this is not if the economy is working well in Germany.
So how can we democratize the capital in the United States and give most workers a say in how our economy is run.
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Thom Hartmann wrote this article for the end of poverty in the fall 2014 issue of YES Magazine Thom is a writer, activist and talk show This column is an excerpt from his latest book, The Crash of 2016 The plot to destroy America and what we can do to stop twelve books, 2013 with permission of the publisher.
If unions violate Why are automakers BMW and Mercedes So Rich by Thom Hartmann, unions, rupture, automakers.