… yeah, never give rights to workers! Back to the middle ages again!

Betriebsräte are actually a really sane measure once you think about it. And the more intelligent managers take them as an asset.

Did you completely miss the "while not necessarily 'bad'" part of my post?

Not the OP, but I don't understand what your original comment was trying to convey.

You took in my opinion unfortunately the worst example you could. Unions are by definition bureaucratic because they need to be...

Betriebsräte are not unions though...

You're right, technically they are different. However, the context is relatively similar - lots of laws to know about, etc.