[s1rech]

I live in Germany, and I know many engineers who work for one of the big carmakers (either directly or through some external company). Most of them are under some form of collective bargaining agreement. They have a lot of nice perks, like paid overtime (in the form of days of) and pretty good salaries.

Meanwhile I work as a developer for an internet company. I've never heard of anybody working under a CBA, or any kind of compensation for overtime (except for extreme cases, like working on sundays). I earn significantly less too.

So I guess unions can be good sometimes, or something.

[eigenvector]

I'm a Canadian that has worked in a few large, unionized public or quasi-public workplaces as an engineer. In general hours of work, benefits (extended medical / dental) and vacation / sick leave will be better than in non-union private sector workplaces. Salaries tend to higher at the entry-level and comparable at the high end.

However, I have always found employee satisfaction and employee-management relations to be far worse in the large union workplaces.

I believe it is due to the fact that having a big, strong union that is capable of basically strong-arming the employer through the threat of job action (if you operate a nuclear power plant, having your engineers go on strike is not really an option) forces management to concede benefits they don't truly believe employees deserve, and that leads to clawbacks of, well, pretty much everything that isn't in the collective agreement. So you might get your 18 sick days (which you can never use without lying because no one who is not chronically ill gets sick for 18 working days every year), but you might have to fill out a multi-page form to get a new notebook (a paper notebook not a notebook computer).

Look at the sort of treatment that contract or temp employees get in big unionized workplaces - generally awful, and that reflects the company's true attitude toward it's employees.

I'd much rather work in a non-union workplace where I get benefits above the statutory minimums because the company truly values it's employees and understands that people who are treated well are more productive than one where everything I get was a concession to avoid labour strife.

If non-unionized company X gives 3 weeks paid vacation per year (2 weeks is the mandatory minimum in Canada) because they want to, that's much more likely to translate into a great workplace than the 4 weeks company Y gives because their employees are members of a massive national labour union and demand it.

Just my $0.02 from personal experience.

[Daishiman]

| I'd much rather work in a non-union workplace where I get benefits above the statutory minimums because the company truly values it's employees and understands that people who are treated well are more productive than one where everything I get was a concession to avoid labour strife.

Agreed, but do take notice that most people, in most industries, generally don't have that choice

[eigenvector]

I agree, many industries are a race to the bottom as far as treating your employees like people - retail, for example. But for 'knowledge workers' like most folks on HN, I think the tide is beginning to turn with a lot of tech companies realizing that employees who actually like the company, who can go grab an appetizing meal without leaving the office, or use whatever office furniture makes them most efficient, etc etc are going to generate more value for owners/shareholders than a 9-5 drone.

And just to clarify on the use of the term 'engineer', I am an electrical engineer specializing in protection & control. I have worked alongside a variety of electrical, civil, mechanical and industrial engineers in power generation, transmission and distribution. I long for the day when there is a company in my field with a startup mentality.

[heydenberk]

"extreme cases, like working on sundays"

Oh, Germany.

[LearnYouALisp]

Did you know most stores close at 8PM on weekdays?

[hammock]

Is that supposed to be different from the states, where many retail stores close sometime between 7-9pm?

[ugh]

In the city I grew up in (in Bavaria) every store has to close by 8pm and no store can open on Sundays. The exception are bakeries and gas stations. (I also think that stores inside of train stations are exempted. And just so there is no misunderstanding, restaurants, cafes and pubs are of course also exempt from this.)

Where I grew up there is not a single open grocery store anywhere after 8pm or on Sundays for hundreds of kilometers. That makes a difference to places where stores can legally remain open longer.

I’m currently living in Thuringia where stores can be open until 10pm on weekdays – and sure, many smaller stores and even the big shopping mall still opt to only open until 8pm, but thee are always one or two big grocery stores that are actually open until 10pm.

The quantitative difference between no open stores and one or two open stores may be small, the qualitative difference, however, is big.

[cookiecaper]

If you're a mom and pop or speciality shop you may close between 7 and 9 (usually closer to 9), but most of the regional or national "stores" close between 10pm and 12am.

Grocery stores are even better, generally either closing at 12am or not closing at all. Wal-Mart, for instance, is mostly 24 hours, and Wal-Mart is very widespread.

[duck]

It really depends where you live. In Maine, all grocery stores that I know of close no later than 9pm. I really think that is better too, especially since a lot of the employees are high school kids.

[ams6110]

Minors are already governed by federal work hour limits.

[LearnYouALisp]

H-E-B (mainly in central and south Texas) has similar hours at some of its locations.

[mc32]

I think there is a difference. In German States, some states stipulate business hours†. In the US (and most other places) it's up to the businesses to decide their business hours.

Regarding the "supposed" part. I don't know exactly but I don't think there was some coordination or agreement between nations on who would do what.

† http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopping_hours#Germany

[LearnYouALisp]

Nearly everything closes at 8pm, even the grocery stores. In Berlin there were only two or three normal grocery stores I knew of that were open on Sunday (individual stores). Of course, restaurants and cafes are open a little later.

[mahyarm]

How are wages in europe for engineers and developers? I look at wages in Europe compared to the USA, and even though we work a lot more, developers do get paid far more too, especially when you compare on a cost of living and taxation basis.

[GuiA]

If you bring it down to numbers, the pay is definitely higher in the US. For instance, an average software engineer out of school can expect a starting salary between 25 and 35k euros on average in France. In SF, it's more $70-90k at the very least.

But then you have to account for the higher cost of living, transportation (even if you don't drive, French employers pay for a part of your public transportation tickets), and all the other perks that are inherent to your job (insurance, subsidized lunches,...) and inherent to the country (better public education, etc.).

So I think it's hard to say empirically that engineers are better off in one country rather than the other- although I'd be tempted to say that very high end engineers are better off in the US rather than Europe, and the average engineer is better off in Europe rather than the US.

[yummyfajitas]

You have it backwards - the cost of living is considerably higher in France than in the US. What costs $1 in the US costs $1.20 in France [1].

...better public education...

Um, no. Better students, but a considerably worse public education system.

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...

The cheese, however, is considerably better in France, as are the women (fatties over here drag our average down).

[1] Since I'm too lazy to switch to windows and open up the Penn Table in Excel, I backed the numbers out of GDP tables: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin...

[edit: Hi downmodders, sorry for providing facts. I'll try to avoid that in the future.]

[GuiA]

Interesting data, thanks for looking it up+linking it!

Based on my very subjective experience living in both countries (France growing up + undergrad, US as a graduate student+working), I would say much depends on the size of the city where you live.

Living in San Francisco definitely costs much more than living in Lyon (2nd largest city in France) for me- if you look at the apartment alone, I'd have to shell out $2k+ for something I'd easily have in France for under a thousand euros in terms of size + proximity to businesses.

But then for the food + basic expenses (clothing, etc.) I feel like I spend about the same, although some things are more expensive in the US (public transportation, cell phone plans,...).

When I lived in Grenoble I lived a comfortable student life on 1000 euros a month- this would be nowhere sufficient to live comfortably with in SF. But of course the cities are of different sizes, so again this is very shaky grounds for accurate comparison.

I don't want to end up posting a novel here, but it's definitely an interesting topic on which I'd love to hear more insights from european expatriates in the US (or the opposite).

As for the cheese, you are completely right– and regarding the women, I don't want to belittle my fellow French women, but I would be lying if I said I hadn't found delightful ladies in SF :)

[nzmsv]

Providing facts does not excuse acting like a jackass.

[yummyfajitas]

Why do you feel I acted like a jackass?

[philwelch]

The "fatties" remark was pretty crass.

[isocpprar]

I don't think general PPP and GDP comparisons really make sense on the specific scale offered there. The cost of living in the Bay area and NYC are much much higher then the cost of living in say Alabama. I wouldn't be surprised if $2000 in rent went a lot farther in France (even Paris) then it does in say Manhattan or SF.

[mahyarm]

A lot of SF employers of engineers serve all three meals, or at least lunch, pay health insurance and provide public transportation subsidization too, so on that basis they're about equal. Health insurance while unemployed isn't so nice although. Owning a motor vehicle on gas cost alone is almost double so I hear.

[gujk]

I recently last sentence is social democracy in a. nutshell.

[iwwr]

The comparison should not be made between people who can be workers both under a union or outside of it, but rather between them and people who would be barred from employment altogether (at least in those specific instances).