[sarabande]

It's admirable to me that unions protect low-skilled workers from losing their job, not by preventing them from getting fired at current wages, but by accepting wage decreases for their workers while getting them re-trained into jobs of higher cognitive skill.

That seems like the fair and humane thing to do for workers, while at the same time not screwing over capital owners or stifling automation.

[kensai]

This. Germany is one of the few places that Unions are working (mostly) as intended. When Germany was under pressure in the Schröder era, it was the Unions that helped dealing with convincing the workers to accept shorter shifts and salaries, instead of pushing companies to relocation or, worse, bankruptcy.

[jojoo]

As a member of the German Education and Science Union i have to strongly disagree.

Germany is becoming a low income country for a lot of jobs and the unions are doing nothing against it.

Year after year all German workers have collective bargaining agreements close to inflation, while the economy booms.

The union-reps are in bed with the companys and workers eat it up.

[karllager]

> Germany is becoming a low income country for a lot of jobs and the unions are doing nothing against it.

Yes, this is true. About 39% of the currently employed have so called atypical jobs [1] - some of which are actually subsidized by the state, because income is so low.

Germany is an austerity poster child - I wonder what will happen, if the export boom is over. Things might become much worse, once the debt-financed foreign purchases dry up for some reason.

[1] https://www.boeckler.de/108863_108907.htm (German only).

[lucaspiller]

It sounds like Germany is just catching up with the rest of Europe.

[usrusr]

Oh, unions are fighting for workers, just not very successful. They can lower the impact of market forces, but they cannot negate them. Who they are notoriously not fighting for is temp workers and future temp workers who have it much worse than barely matching inflation. Darkly logical, temps are not members.

[adventured]

Where are you seeing that the German economy is booming? It hasn't net expanded in ten years.

GDP 2007: $3.44 trillion vs 2016: $3.46 trillion

It has been averaging around 1.5% GDP growth since 2011. That is not booming. Germany may finally climb above the pre great recession era GDP numbers in 2017. Germany is having the problems that it is, precisely due to the lack of meaningful economic growth. There's no scenario where you're going to see almost any wage growth if GDP is mired in 0.5% to 1.5% type expansion; to make matters worse, the next recession will easily swat the recent modest gains right back down (which is one of the many reasons faster growth is a must, inevitably a recession will occur).

[lispm]

BIP in Germany in 2007: 2.5 trillion Euro

BIP in Germany in 2016: 3.1 trillion Euro

https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1251/umfrage/...

1.5% GDP growth in a country with a developed economy and a constant population number is actually okay. In such an economy GDP growth is linked to population growth...

[tim333]

>union-reps are in bed with the company...

I imagine more of the problem is German factories have to compete with those in lower wage EU countries like Poland and so have limited room to pay more.

[agumonkey]

Interesting. For those who know Germany, it's often said that even if the economic numbers are high, there's a lot of poor workers that need two jobs to live. Is it true ? true but only a small % ? normal according to you ?

[ManuelKiessling]

I can only report from a viewpoint inside my own filter bubble obviously, but this "two or three jobs to earn a living" is something that is still associated with the US here and practically unheard of in Germany.

[goldbricked]

Well, then i guess your bubble has a particularly large diameter. With almost 1 in 10 workers in Germany being part of the 'working poor' [1], there would otherwise be one in your social circle. [1] https://www.boeckler.de/106575_109897.htm

[germanier]

The definition of "working poor" they use is not "having two or more jobs" but "earning less than 60% of the median".

According to IAB 2.7 million workers have a second job in Germany (which is about 1 in 12). Most of them probably because they don’t earn enough in their first.

[readittwice]

Not to forget that this number alone doesn't mean anything, we still need to compare this number to other countries or to the past. But then we also need to consider stuff like this: AFAIR the number of "working poor" or "relative poor" decreased in/after the crisis 2008. Why? Not because companies paid more during the crisis but simply since the median income decreased.

[pgeorgi]

"Working poor" in Germany means having to use the social security systems to make up for the difference between what they earn and what they need.

And yes, this means that those jobs are tax subsidized.

[agumonkey]

It used to be an Americanism, but French documentaries showed the disappointments of many factory jobs; and lots of politicians there too say that the economic wonder is only so because they allowed for very harsh but unmeasured life condition.

[maxxxxx]

What I hear is that things are going downhill in Germany too with Euro jobs and eternal internships. but i think there is generally still an assumption to you should be able to live from a full time job

[fnordian_slip]

In addition to what ManuelKiessling already said, I can also report that in my bubble this is not the case, but it is hard to accurately judge our bubbles.

According to this bar chart on wealth distribution in the EU [1] there is a huge difference between the average and median wages in Germany, so I would expect the group of poor workers to be much larger than we think it is.

Of course, being poor in Germany might mean something different than in the US, since we still have better access to healthcare (at least in my opinion, I don't know enough about the US system to be 100% sure).

[1]: http://media0.faz.net/ppmedia/aktuell/wirtschaft/831437975/1...

\EDIT: I should have cited the source accurately, the chart comes from the FAZ, a huge and respected German newspaper.

[readittwice]

Your chart is about assets not income/wages as you claim. Since the chart is in German too, readers can't see that.

People in Germany seem to prefer rent over freehold property, this might explain Germany's low numbers compared to other states.

[fnordian_slip]

Maybe my English skills aren't up to what I thought they were, so please correct me if I am wrong, but isn't "Bruttojahreseinkommen" "gross annual income"?

On the left there is wealth (/assets, "Vermögen"), then the next part is about the percentage of people who own houses ("Anteil Hausbesitzer"), and then comes the meat of the chart, the difference in gross annual income ("Bruttojahreseinkommen").

I am sorry to venture so far off topic, but I do most of my thinking either in German or in English which makes me vulnerable to stupid mistakes when the two overlap, so I would really appreciate it if you could tell me where I went wrong.

[readittwice]

No sorry, you are right. There are also wages in this chart, I didnt't see that. Sorry for that...

But IMHO the difference between median and average isn't that big in Germany, even smaller than in Austria which doesn't have Hartz IV and Euro-Jobs. What would you consider acceptable? Also consider that these numbers may contain salaries for part-time jobs too. And those numbers are from 2010.

[_pmf_]

> People in Germany seem to prefer rent over freehold property, this might explain Germany's low numbers compared to other states.

For the average German, buying a house means 30 years of debt: 300 000 EUR vs. 50 000 EUR salary (which is actually 30 000 EUR due to taxes and mandatory health insurance).

[readittwice]

But is this really different in other countries? I would say the numbers also apply for Austria. Although 300k is probably more the lower bound. Even if you built the house yourself in the rural area of the country. Austria already has a higher number of freehold property compared to Germany.

IMHO much of the difference between countries in this regard can be explained by tradition, history or population density.

[lispm]

There is still the East/West divide. Less jobs and lower payment in the East. Then there is a larger sector with low-paid jobs and lots of people from East Germany and Central/East Europe competing. The EU rights makes it easy for EU-citizens to look for jobs in Germany.

Mostly everybody with medium- or high qualifications should have no problems finding a well-paid job. Across all ages. In the western parts of Germany...

[agumonkey]

I've recently read that the east still hasn't recovered from the pre reunification lag... crazy.

[usrusr]

Has southern Italy ever recovered from not being the north? Has the American Midwest recovered from not being one of the coasts? Economies naturally concentrate and countering that takes not only effort and dedication but also wise decisions and luck. West Germany used to be very good at this, but concentration to a few major cities has been accelerating recently. It's not only eastern Germany that is being left behind, the weaker regions of the former west are suffering from the same draw.

[adventured]

> Has the American Midwest recovered from not being one of the coasts?

That's not a great reference point. It only works well if you're only talking about New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut.

California's GDP per capita is only about 8%-10% higher than Nebraska. Iowa is as high as Oregon. Illinois is 30% higher than Florida. Indiana is higher than Vermont. Wisconsin is higher than North Carolina. Minnesota is close to Maryland. South Dakota is higher than New Jersey or Virginia. Kansas is 20% higher than Maine. Missouri is higher than South Carolina. Ohio is on par with Rhode Island.

The US mid-west is an economic juggernaut compared to the rest of the world. It's larger than the economies of France or the UK, and nearly as big as Germany. Averaged out it's very comparable to the coastal states.

[agumonkey]

I see, quite interesting.

[lispm]

I don't think that's crazy. The GDR economy was dismantled after the war by the soviets quite a bit more than in the west. Then it had a socialist style economy for several decades, then with the reunification, the economy collapsed. Lots of industry went away because it was not competitive and based on old technology or for various other reasons. East Germany is near to countries which are even poorer. The young people moved to the west to work there. This creates all kinds of structural disadvantages which will be hard to overcome in 50 years.

[karllager]

Gini coefficient is the among the highest in Europe, about 0.76. About ten years ago, a neoliberal shift loosened labor laws and saved the overall economy by letting less skilled workers not get unemployed, just take a pay cut (what France is trying to push now against a lot of protests, since government realized, the global party is over).

Wages in Germany stagnated as well, domestic trade is dwarfed by export. Living has gotten much more expensive in the cities continuously moving the shrinking middle class further down.

Germany has a track record of being strong enough, so that revolutions seldom happen. But if they happen, the are almost guaranteed to be catastrophic.

[agumonkey]

In France it's not seen as an altruist idea but as a favor to the company heads, risking too many unhealthy balance in the employee / employer relationships. An opportunity for more wild Uber management scheme in a way. When Germans talk about this idea in their country, it seems a good idea that I would back right away. But somehow nobody trusts French CEOs not to profit too much from the new flexibility.

[jernfrost]

Works the same in Norway, but it is not because US/UK unions are so badly behaved. They behave as the anti-union system in the UK and US have made them act. Unions in Germany and Scandinavia work because they got considerable power and are represented on the company boards. That means they learn to take responsibilty by being given considerable responsibility and power. Unions in the US and the UK are not given any trust or power but instead are fought and sabotaged at every opportunity. This is what has made them a reactionary force dealing with management as the enemy.

[_pmf_]

> it was the Unions that helped dealing with convincing the workers to accept shorter shifts and salaries

Schröder paved the way for the Arbeitnehmerüberlassung, which causes a massive rise in time restricted contracts and external workforce. Unions are very happy to keep this going, as this keeps salaries for proper employees higher than ever (a 20000 EUR difference is not uncommon for the same job), and bonus payments that amount to 10000 EUR for Porsche and 6000 EUR for Daimler. For the growing number of employees working under these contracts, it amounts to having a 30 to 40 per cent lower salary to your colleague who works beside you, doing the same job. (Add to that the constant yapping of the SPD regarding a perceived gender based wage gap and you know why they are so detested in large parts of the population.)

[maxxxxx]

No idea why you got downvoted. Your comment is right on.

[cnlevy]

Maybe from a non-German union ?

[matt4077]

At the core of the comparatively good relationships between labor and capital in Germany is the law requiring labor representation of 50% - one vote on large companies' boards.

This results in a complicated role for both sides that isn't just adversarial as it is in most other countries. Labor shares the responsibility for the company's future and gets to be part of every step of the process when it comes to making hard decisions. But it also requires management to strive to improve their employees' well-being, since they will often require their cooperation.

If these specific solutions are anything but band-aids/wishful thinking/PR remains to be seen. Germany has, just like all other countries, seen an increased use of time-limited contracts and temp agencies, leaving many employees in perpetual danger of immediate social decline if the economy hits a road bump. And it isn't quite clear if the rise of machine learning + robotics isn't the one innovation and bucks the trend, and actually does create a class of people that is essentially shut out of the jobs market by machines that are strictly more productive at any job they can realistically perform: there's only so much programming you can teach a bricklayer in his 50s.

[wiz21c]

It is not admirable at all. It basically means that you're putting a competition between machines and humans. If machines do become smarter, then humans will be moved out of the equation (except for the 0.001% who can create and maintain the machines).

This kind of fight may be good on the short term, but it legitimates the fact than man are inferior to machine. For example, it may soon legitimates that, contrary to man, the machine works non stop, doesn't go on strike, doesn't want a raise, doesn't go to the toilet, whatever...

If machines are to rule, then we have to change the way we redistribute the worth they produce.

[mdpopescu]

Humans ARE inferior to machines - in some areas. I can't fly as well as an airplane or cut steel as well as a lathe, therefore someone who needs flying or cutting steel would be better off by using a machine instead of me.

What would the alternative be? Force businesses to hire me to "do my best" to fly people around?

Will this create social problems if / when machines are better than humans at everything? Sure, just like it happened in each field once machines were better at something - starting with the sewing machines and the luddites, if I'm not mistaken.

I do believe that the final result will be a Star-Trek-ish society where everybody has access to most things for free, and where everyone works only if they want to; however, I don't believe it will be easy to get there.

[wiz21c]

Machines are superior sometimes, you're right (and for the best of us, that's for sure). But that's not my point. My point is that we shouldn't compare machines to men. Because too often one compares the perceived characteristics of men (like too expensive, wanting too much, having a consciousness, having babies,...) to other characteristics of machines, logically concluding that men are more troubles than machines.

Fact is that right now, in every media, machines are presented as a threat to employment of men. By presenting it as such, media imply the fact that for employment, machines are better. At the same time, governments, spend most of their time fighining against unemployment, which sort of criminalize people who don't get a job (they don' look hard enough, they're not flexible enough).

So all of this lead to a big problem : people don't get job and it's their fault and, moreover, for the simpler jobs, men are inferior to machines. So basically, we show men under a very dim light. That's what I see all around.

Now, if you tell me that machines will remove the hard part of some jobs (like heavy lifting, working in polluted environement, etc) and, at the same time, the benefits made by those who have machines ('cos machine are cheaper than men) are fully redistributed (save for capex) to those who lost their job, then we can have a talk.

[znpy]

Oh the things I could say...

There are probably things you don't even immagine to pay for, that are now done by machines, and that used to be performed by humans.

Think of circuit-switching telphony, when you used to say "operator, connect me with number xyz-xxx" and someone on the other side would phisically create a connection between you and someone else to talk.

Consider mail delivery. There used to be a milkman. Mail was only paper.

A lot of stuff.

On the same planet, self driving cars are about to be easily available, no more drivers or cab drivers, amazon has robots doing most of the heavy lifting (quite literally) but we enjoy these other things, and do not complain about anything because they're cool, i guess.

I cannot wait for this thread to be featured on n-gate.

[walshemj]

with the runaway growth of telecoms in the early years manual operators had to be automated to some extent quite early on as there would physically not be enough workers to staff all the manual boards

[imtringued]

The primary problem with automation is temporary displacement of workers. There needs to be a mechanism to connect skill demand to people otherwise people end up in low skill jobs.

>If machines are to rule, then we have to change the way we redistribute the worth they produce.

In theory if there is enough competition the price of the good decreases through automation.

Imagine you're a business selling clothing where 50% of the cost is labor and the rest are materials. You now buy a machine that replaces the labor cost with a 10% robot cost. You make 40% profit on everything you sell. Someone else builds a factory and sells the same good for 70% of the price. Consumers now have more money available to spend on other goods that are more "labor" intensive.

Unfortunately in practice we have monopolies/oligopolies everywhere.

[wiz21c]

>>> Unfortunately in practice we have monopolies/oligopolies everywhere.

Exactly.

And to me robotics is so capital intensive that you'll inevitably have such monopolies (like in oil industry).

That's why I don't like when people look only the tool instead of the people affected by the tool (be they on on good or bad side of it).

[avar]

Men are also inferior to machines when it comes to farm work, but judging from your comment you'd presumably like to go back to the good old days when over 50% of the population worked on farms.

[richthegeek]

Or the really good old days when 97% worked in agriculture...

[usrusr]

Only in times of peace.

(To nitpick on myself, it could be argued that war campaigns were also mostly agricultural work: they were just harvesting other people's fields)

[wiz21c]

No. My problem is not automation/mechanization, I'm all for that. My point is that, if we mechanizes, who pays the bill for lost/relocated jobs ?

[paulddraper]

US agricultural jobs dropped from 70% to 20% in eighty years.

50% of careers gone within one lifetime. And the US did better then ever.

[damnstraight]

Maybe we should value humans beyond the labor they can fulfill.

[thephyber]

We already do, it's just not anywhere close to evenly distributed.

Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton did no actual work, yet made a lucrative living, even in their late teens.

Almost everyone has personal family+friends that they value in ways other than needing their labor. But it doesn't scale. People have a Dunbar number of somewhere a little (perhaps a lot) over ~140, but nowhere near a nation-state population.

[paulddraper]

I think there are more than 3k adults in the entire US that can "create and maintain machines".

[Mikeb85]

That's not a good thing. If we want society to be more equal, funnelling money to capital holders at the expense of workers isn't the way to accomplish that goal.