[AntoPaz]

Interestingly many engineers in the German car industry (often seen as high quality), e.g. at Audi or BMW and other large non-automotive enterprises like Siemens work under IG Metall union contracts and the companies do rather well.

[nocoolnametom]

I think that's because in those countries a loss of employment doesn't have the potential to cause gigantic disruptions to life through the loss of health insurance and often housing. There are much more robust systems in place to help an individual worker handle life while between jobs. So the union isn't as incentivized to try to prevent any and all layoffs even when the company needs to respond to changing economic factors that might require scaling back.