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Union Law in a lot of "Europe" (a broad term so very dependent country to country) is much less adversarial with businesses than in the US.

At least in Western Europe, the big Unions won't fight tooth and nail over mass layoffs (eg. Volvo in 2009-12 Sweden versus GM in 2009-12 US) and make it a major political issue, as the Union Leadership has larger ambitions beyond their Union.

A lot of this seems to stem from the influence National Syndicalism had on most European unions in the 20th century compared to traditional Syndicalism in the US+UK in the 20th century.



>Union Law in a lot of “Europe” […] is much less adversarial with businesses than in the US.

US labor law was designed to be adversarial at the firm level because that gives individual firms greater power to crush unions and prevents sectoral bargaining and sympathy strikes. One can see the vestiges of “European” labor organizing in the film industry, which has an exemption to this that was grandfathered in.


can you elaborate on that please?

i don't see how US law wants companies to crush unions. and what is that film industry exemption about? any references?



from where I am in europe, I have different memories... unions were pretty aggressive when it came to companies like Volvo




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