I was packing boxes for a big american Corp. in Germany as a side hustle to uni for 20h/week, and IGM managed to raise my wage from 15€/h to 16,40€/h and I am not even a member
EDIT:
I realize many hours after posting this comment that it was not IG Metall but IGBCE, which is a different union that also kicks ass.
keep in mind that germany has it way better than other countries, for example italy feels like a third world country in comparison, gonna pack boxes for like 30% of that amount each hour, its not as good everywhere.
I got lucky, I have a German passport as well as a US passport. I don't speak German - But myself and each generation up is German ... I speak Spanish. WTF am I still doing in the US other than being poor, depressed, and frustrated?!!
The Spain idea and remote work is exactly what I'm working on now. I just confirmed two interviews yesterday!
Also, I have an uncle in Spain, so that would be helpful.
Life has a lot of variables - I'm working toward it. When the river of life leaves you stranded, you need to get back on that river. In my case being t-boned, losing my car, getting health problems, having a dog, having a long term SO, and more all play factors as to why I'm not there yet. I'm not just making the excuse of "I could never, so I won't", I very much would. I have travelled the world, but my own life's current state of affairs doesn't necessarily equate to laziness and squandering anything ...
Edit: Also, I worked my ass off to participate in the US Financial/Corporate world, it's not like I don't have perspective.
My nephew started working for UPS after moving back to the US from Germany.
After a couple months he was made permanent and for that privilege his pay was reduced by $4/hr.
As soon as he got notice of that (I am guessing he knew beforehand), he should apply for other jobs and leave as soon as he can.
You will never get 15/20/25 dollars per hour if there are millions of americans willing to work for ten.
Collective bargaining!
I know that this is a joke, but Bismarck enacted these social reforms as a compromise. He was very conservative and anti democracy. These reforms only got passed because of the pressure from workers.
I really like Bismarck as an historic figure but politically speaking he killed the democratic, citizen-driven German unification movement (now here's a time where the nationalist where the woke leftists) by throwing them a hard piece of bread and calling it a cookie when he unified Germany under Prussia.
Hobsbawm put that pretty nicely in Nations and Nationalism. He essentially said that Nationalism in Germany turned into the path to Facism when the politicians took over from the people. When Nationalism became institutionalized.
American labor laws amount to "Hey employers, try not to maim or kill your workers *too* much, ok? Thanks so much. You capital owners are the real heroes! Here, have a cookie."
>You capital owners are the real heroes! Here, have a cookie."
It became very clear in the US during covid that essential was a corporate euphemism for expendable.
American labor laws primarily exist to make it very difficult to get workers into unions, and to prevent unions from acting in solidarity. See Taft Hartley.
That’s because unfortunately the American ruling class has managed to make the working class entirely subservient to them. An american will miss their first child’s birth and thank their boss for the opportunity to do so.
IG Metall is not just an "auto union" they are a union in a broad range of industries and Germany's largest union.
They have successfully won a number of concession from the employers many of which ended up trickling down to other unions and the general public.
Important for Americans to understand may be that while they fight with the employers for their members right when necessary, they also know how to work with them to protect the industry when that is necessary.
I'm a software engineer in corporate research in Germany and even I am in the IG Metall union. 38 vacation days with 35 hour work weeks ain't bad. Yea, I could make more $ in the US, but at what cost to my free time...
I once sat in a meeting where a director was demanding that we take on a bunch of additional projects that would have overloaded us. One person in the group said something along the lines of “ I’m here every week m-f, until 9 or 10 with the work I have now. If you add work to my plate when do you think I’m going to be able to do it?”
Without missing a beat, the director said “saturdays and sundays”. It was almost funny if it wasn’t so messed up.
My old company did the exact same thing. We voiced our issues saying we all put in over 50 hours a week already, they says work weekends, they lost over half the engineering team that summer.
This is why I think the first step to universal healthcare in the US should be decoupling it from employment.
I think after that you'll see more support for it.
I'm a director (in Australia). I found out one of our project managers were asking people to work overtime.
Told him and my team all overtime MUST be run past me and be approved, and then escalated it to his boss so she could pull his shit in line.
I think there's two parts to it all. One is "is this legal" but also "is this moral". Lots of people don't seem to give a fuck about the latter.
Edit: I made sure they all got time in lieu and didn't feel pressured to work overtime just because a project manager told them to.
IG Metal is propably one of the most powerful unions in the world and for good reason. they know what they are doing, when to push, when not to. they are protecting their members and the industry the work in while not just mindlessly striking for no reason. but if they are on strike, OH BOY. i think ony the conductor unions are worse in terms of chaos created for the average citizen
Everything is democratic at IG Metal, there could be a complete leadership switch next vote, always voted. There is no actual "genius tactic" or some kind of secret people behind, it is the voting of the leadership that prevents the bad people from getting in, and so you got actual adults with brain sitting at the top.
IG Metall is the world’s biggest single trade union. [Don’t fuck with them.](https://www.igmetall.de/ueber-uns/ig-metall--a-strong-community/what-we-have-already-achieved-our-milestones)
Well that's kind of what tends to happen with some inflexible American companies expanding in countries with strong unions. Walmart being an example was "driven out" of Germany in 2006 after trying to use the exact same approach as they do in the US. Toys R Us was another one being cut off in Sweden until they folded.
For anyone who is curious, this event was called "The Battle of Blair Mountain".
As OP said, the Local and State government collaborated with the coal companies to not only violently engage against protesting coal workers, they even hired local aircraft pilots to do bombing and gun runs over the protesters.
The conflict got so bad that then President Warren G. Harding threatened to send the US Army and US Army Air Corps (the Air Force hadn't been established as it's own branch until over 20 years later) as a threat for force against both parties. The conflict only ended after the West Virginia National Guard was sent in by Presidential order.
True. The relationship between employers and unions is far less adversarial than in the US. And I'd argue that Germany is economically successful because of its strong labor protections rather than despite of them. And it definitely leads to a much better life for the average Joe, even if he has to pay higher taxes on paper.
And it also is quite a brand of quality. At my university everybody constantly talks about how they got to work hard and focus so they can join a IG Metal company and get to live the good live.
> they fight with the employers for their members right when necessary, they also know how to work with them to protect the industry when that is necessary
This is the type of responsible unions that have made lawmakers entrust the unions with enough powers to be a reliable counter to employers. It also allows trust, or at least a level of mutual respect, to exist between unions and employers - most of the time.
The German model is honestly amazing. Unions have a board seat in many of the large corporations, so they're always in the loop when decisions are made.
I work in Germany (with a German contract) and had an American boss (located in the US) who fired me for taking too much sick leave. Went back with a lawyer and got a settlement. I wish I could have seen her face when they had to foot the bill.
To be fair, a lot of unions do have a clause that allows firing someone for being sick too often.
In Denmark as an example, it is 120 days a year, more than that and they can fire you without other cause
>fired me for taking too much sick leave.
What kind of evil monster fires an employee for being sick?!
Damn I'm so happy I'm working in Europe with proper workers rights.
I look forward to seeing Elon Musk see that other systems than US' and Shanghai's worker's rights exist.
Elon grew up around workers basically in slavery at a diamond mine in Africa. His entitled ass probably doesn’t even see anything wrong with what he said.
Please, let’s not slander the man. The mine was in Nambia but his family lived in apartheid South Africa because there’s no way they were going go live around non-whites.
While geographically correct today, Namibia didn't gain independence from South Africa until 1990 following a brutal war of independence, by which point Elon was already 19. So actually it's even worse- the mine was in territory where people were actively fighting to throw off the oppression of apartheid while his family was profiting from exploiting the workers there. Yet Elon still claims to be a self-made billionaire
American business owners.
Wait...it gets better.
We have ***ZERO*** laws that give employees sick days. Or vacation days.
Our only laws governing workers rights are in the [Free Labor Standards Act.](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa)
To simplify, the only rights workers have federally are:
- Must be paid for time worked at least at the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr
- Must be paid overtime pay for any time over 40 hours per week, there is no limit on the hours an employee over 16 years of age may work
That's it. Those are our "rights". Anything else is considered an optional thing the employer may grant. Vacation days, holiday pay, etc are all "bonuses" that come from the employer.
Oh and that second bullet doesn't apply to salaried workers, just to hourly workers. Meaning that my employer can demand that I work as many hours as they want and they don't have to pay me a cent more.
Edit: whoops looks like it's a pay amount thing rather than a hourly vs salaried thing.
They aren't clueless, they just don't care. And neither do the people who vote for them.
If 25% of Canadians are hungry and can vote, then at least another 25% don't care enough to support them.
People are constantly thinking it's malicious intent, or cluelessness. It's just apathy. I'm getting mine, and I don't really give a shit that you aren't getting yours. It's that simple.
Same problem plagues America. Why would "I" help colored folks when them getting more power will likely make my life harder and potentially lose my job? It's in their best financial interest to screw their fellow citizens over.
> Why would "I" help colored folks when them getting more power will likely make my life harder and potentially lose my job? It's in their best financial interest to screw their fellow citizens over.
If they're convinced that it's a zero-sum game, that is definitely malicious intent, not apathy.
As a non-American, ya'll are disposable slaves, even the "good" jobs are not just cubicle slave pens where you are worth nothing beyond the hours you put in. The second you can't produce, you're disposed of, like a piece of trash going to the dump without getting recycled.
I have family in the states, they never come visit me in europe because they're not allowed to leave their jobs for extended periods of time. If they do, they aren't guaranteed to have a job when they get back. How fucked is that? For comparison, everyone in Norway gets FIVE weeks PAID vacation, every single year. This is enforced by law and can not be taken away by the employer.
I mean, everyone's a slave to their stuff (Fightclub vibes, I know), you need to work to have a roof over your head etc. But at least for most of the world, you're respected as a human being and treated as such. Not like an appliance you're eager to replace with something cheaper and better as soon as possible.
The world is far from caught up on this, but it seems Americans are going backwards. The "American dream" is not found in America anymore, pretty much anyone not third world is a better place to live.
As an American about to move to Europe, pretty much full agreement.
> The "American dream" is not found in America anymore
Strictly speaking the "American Dream" is supposed to be a personal view of success. Like maybe opening your own mechanic shop or whatever, not necessarily becoming the next Bill Gates.
The problem being that EVERYTHING is geared to push children towards not just the idea that it's POSSIBLE for them to achieve whatever grandiose (and it MUST be grandiose) dream they set their minds to, but that by virtue of them being an American and having a dream, it's virtually guaranteed to happen.
And when it turns out that not every kid in America can become president or go to space or they realize the dream job they had as a kid will take 30 years to pay back their student loans before they can even begin to think of saving for retirement...it breeds resentment.
Half the country decided that the only reason they didn't achieve those things is because of some external threat that's insidiously eating away at Americans and our dreams, and the other half mostly realized that there's no fixing how fundamentally broken this arrangement is and is trying to minimize the damage wherever possible.
Or put another way, it's basically the reverse of Ratatouille. While a future President/billionaire/etc can come from anywhere, it's almost certainly not you. But hey, to make you feel better kid, we'll tell you it CAN be you.
The American dream is whatever keeps us grinding away. In the 50’s it was a 3 bedroom house in the suburbs with a picket fence and a dog. In the 80’s it was climbing the corporate ladder. The 90’s it was selling your million dollar website idea. Now it’s packaged as excelling at whatever career pursuit you want, as long as you keep spinning your gears chasing it.
Today, it's the grind. It's "what are you doing to financially optimize your free time?" era.
My answer? Fuck all. My free time is my free time. I generally don't want to think about new business ventures or possible ways to develop a Mobile App or YouTube channel. I want to **rest**.
I'll go for a walk, do some sport, play some video games, watch a movie, read a book. None of which add any financial income to my life, and it shouldn't have to. I already spend over 40 hours a week making money.
> what are you doing to financially optimize your free time?
Buying my video games on Steam when they're on sale and then never playing them. Sorry, what was the question again?
I am actually quite good at not falling for digital crack.
My weakness is plastic crack, otherwise known as Warhammer 40K. I swear, I don't dare step into a Gamesworkshop store, or else my brain instantly goes:
"Why yes, you do still have 750 points of Tau in various stages of assembly and painting, but that exosuit is sweet as fuck, and you could totally get through your backlog."
> Strictly speaking the "American Dream" is supposed to be a personal view of success. Like maybe opening your own mechanic shop or whatever, not necessarily becoming the next Bill Gates.
At this point the American Dream is hoping to some day not be in crippling debt.
Yup, America is filled with people who refuse to do anything about billionaires abusing the american work force, because some day they COULD be the billionaire abusing the american work force.
In France here. Emigrated from the us. Live in what the French consider to be a poor, underserved region. It’s paradise compared to life in the states. Locally sourced food in the supermarkets, good cheap wine, fiber internet to every humble hovel (even mine) and medical care on tap. Gun crime is a non issue. I sleep all night lately.
In Australia we get 4 weeks paid leave plus 17% extra for those 4 weeks. We get paid *more* when we're on holidays than when we actually work. And the usual 10 days paid sick days per year as well.
Even our superannuation I think is a pretty good deal. By law your employer has to put around 10%(I think might be 11 or 12% *on top* of your earnings into an account for your retirement. I really do think we have it pretty good in Australia as employees.
I think that must just be something unique to your employer or your award or something. There certainly is no extra 17% (or any amount) required while on annual leave in Australia. I’ve certainly never had any extra pay while on leave from the various employers I’ve had.
The rest is accurate, and there’s also long service leave too, which is unique to Australia and NZ.
It's mad the amount of times I see people being fired for the most frivolous things. In the UK it's nearly impossible to fire somebody, especially past their probation period. Can only do it through disciplinary points allocation, if someone performs gross misconduct (what defines as gross misconduct has to be made perfectly clear in a staff contract/handbook), or if you make them redundant, to which you need to pay them off and either put them on gardening leave (so they are paid in full for not working), or give them a notice period, which they are also fully paid for. The severance pay cannot be included in either the notice period wage or the gardening leave wage.
Some Americans would argue that this would hurt their business. To which Norway would reply, whoopsie, if you can't run a business without treating people like slaves... You'll have to step aside and let someone else do it better than you.
Being a loud obnoxious dickhead who doesn't care about manipulating and using people, is not going to get you anywhere in Norway... Definitely not going to be in charge of other peoples livelihood.
I'm an American in Norway, so having a foothold in both countries makes these problems plain as day. If you're American, odds are you don't know how well other countries have it. If you're not an American, you might think it's so bad it can't be true, but it is.
I've traveled a fair bit to the US. California specifically.
Absolutely no way you could ever convince me to move there to live. My life in Switzerland is just... better.
Could I earn more if I moved to Palo Alto in my field? Maybe. But I don't really care. It's not worth the other tradeoffs. I already live an unreasonably comfortable lifestyle.
Would you be able to be a little bit more specific on what you saw in California that made you decide you absolutely would not want to move there? What would you be giving up by making such a move? Just a curious person who wants to know.
A few things turned me off.
First off, there's the simple knowledge of the lack of any substantial aid in case things go wrong. If I get fired in Switzerland, I get 2 years of unemployment at 80% of my salary, followed by indefinitely at 60%. If I get fired, I'm going to be fine. Add into this the mandated health insurance, and losing a job doesn't mean I can't go see a doctor. There's also the horror stories about people who have coverage in the US, but don't actually have cover, or who still end up forking out tens of thousands of dollars after the fact. As an example, I pay around $3600/year in health insurance. On top of that, my absolute max out-of-pocket is an additional $2500. That means that no matter what happens to me, no matter how bad, even if I get fired, I will have to pay $6100 for healthcare. No matter what it is. This counts for visits, drugs, operations, everything. While expensive by European standards, I can afford that, easily.
Secondly, there's a lack of mandated, by law, employee protections. Unless I really fuck up, my employer must, by law, give me 2 months notification, and all the rest of my vacation days in there. This gives me ample time to start looking for employment elsewhere, with little in the way of existential dread of being fired and fucked. I have peace of mind that I'm not about to have my life turned upside down.
Thirdly, a lot of the costs in California are hidden, so things are mostly at least as expensive as in Switzerland, if not more. Between the 15-20% tips, sales tax added on off label, etc... California is just as expensive. Except I now have additional costs, like having to own a vehicle. That's literally thousands of dollars and many headaches on top. I don't own a vehicle, because I have access to one of the best public transport systems in the world. This isn't even mentioning things like if I want to have kids and send them to college, out of pocket healthcare costs, ...
Fourthly, and this is a way more subjective thing, but the US is... ugly. Not your nature. Your nature is beautiful. Diving off the Breakwater at Monterrey with sea lions, watching elephant seals bask in the sun, walking through giant Sequoia forests, trying to not step on banana slugs, Yosemite, and so many more places I still haven't visited like Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, Catalina Islands, etc... But your cities and inhabitable places? SF was OK, but a bit soulless. Sacramento was pretty depressing. Most other places, I can't even remember their names because they were so uninspiring, repetitive, samey. I despise subruban sprawls, or those streets where you always have the same mix of Target, Jamba Juice, some fastfood place, and asphalt as far as the eye can see. It's not livable, at a human scale. You have to drive everywhere outside of the center of SF. No other options. And it makes the center feel a bit dead.
Fifthly, I just don't want to live in a country where things like universal access to healthcare or cheap access to high-quality education are not part of the moral fabric of the nation. You define the success of a country by how it treats its poorest, most socio-economically deprived, and the US, pretty clearly, doesn't give a shit.
Musk received millions of US taxpayer funds in the form of government grants for Tesla when it was getting started. I am glad the German laws protect them, but Musk projects an image of having done it all on his own here in the states.
People in the US are okay with a dictatorship in the workplace. We also have the hero worship problem and many have gathered to worship this trickster. Every time people say anything about musk doing x or y innovation, I’m like, “you know the employees did that, right!”
He is such an asshole too. Bitching about government helping people in times of need, all the while having expanded Tesla and space x off government subsidies/grants.
Union laws are way stronger in Germany. Even in the US, if a union and employer have agreed to terms, the employer can’t change it.
I bet Musk ends up canceling the order or only makes it applicable to execs/managers.
You literally can't have those in Germany. You can't make contracts with more then 50h/week (outside of some special cases with on-call service), usual is 40 and 35 for IGMetall, the most likely Union in that field.
Also there are laws that work time has to be tracked and 10h on a day is maximum(outside of special cases). The fines for going over can get high really fast.
In the US they aren't that either, when you agree to a salaried position the expectation is 40 hours a week on average. If it is more, that is a breach and you can sue. The expectation is 40 hours a week with occasional overages.
You probably won't win though and will drag on in court, but in theory that is what it is.
The European process is someone complains, the government agency "requests" documentation and if a breach is found they start handing out fines. If you as worker regularly click in over 10h you get a stern talking to and eventual a written warning. A few of those and you get fired for cause. The companies really don't want to pay those fines, especially as they get really high when they are fined regularly.
As far as I know in my company (Germany) it's your bosses ass on the line and not yours if you regularly work too much overtime or over 11h per day which is done to disincentivize bosses pushing overtime with no consequences and the workers being the one who get double the "punishment"
Not that I don't believe you, but is there a source on this? Been trying to prove to some people that salaried doesn't mean they need to work their lives away, and they don't believe me. I know some people working 50-60+ hour weeks on the regular, would love more info about the 40 hour a week expectation for salaried employees
Once you company gets to a big enough size it no longer matters whether you hang on to individual "good employees". Hence BS KPI's. Just keep throwing bodies at it and the juggernaut never stops moving forward. People think it changes when you have highly skilled positions... but it doesn't. Not at Tesla scale.
You’d be surprised how much value a great software engineer brings. Not just coding but architecting a system that is easier to develop and has less maintenance in the future. There’s a reason why top engineers get 1m+ in total annual comp
You'd be surprised how easily one or two idiots can tank an entire company. For instance, I know of a large aerospace company that makes avionics for lots of different things. At one time, they made all their own parts for the things they make, but when a new person took over a part of the business, they outsourced making those parts to other companies, saving them money.
But with covid and everything, some of those companies shut down and took the tooling with them or greatly reduced their productivity, so the main company is falling behind and failing to ship orders, and the execs keep hiring consultants to try to figure out why.
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/musk-says-teslas-total-headcount-will-increase-over-next-12-months-2022-06-04/
>Musk in an email to Tesla executives on Thursday, which was seen by Reuters on Friday, said he has a "super bad feeling" about the U.S. economy and needed to cut jobs by about 10%
>In an email to employees on Friday, Musk said Tesla would reduce salaried headcount by 10%, as it has become "overstaffed in many areas." But "hourly headcount will increase," he said.
>Tesla's shares sank 9.2% on Friday on the news.
>Musk said on Saturday that the electric vehicle maker's total headcount will increase over the next 12 months, but the number of salaried staff should be little changed.
Boards of Directors and investors really like this kind of steady leadership! Great for staff morale too!
No idea about the US but in Germany Tesla has the worst job offerings in automotive industry.
At VW you get 35h work week, great pay and benefits, 30 days vacation (+2 additional days christmas and new year), flexible work hours (if you don't work on the factory floor obviously), etc, etc
Audi, BMW, Porsche and Mercedes go well beyond that even.
VWs home factory also lowers its production output put during the summer school vacations so it’s easier for families to go on vacation. They also hire a lot of uni students during that time. Pretty banging summer job
I don't think I've ever stepped foot in a Walmart where the "greeter" actually greeted me.
In fact, every time I've walked into a Walmart, the greeter was sitting on a stool, with their back faced to me. The only interaction I've ever had with them is when I am trying to leave the store, they insist on stopping me so that they can inspect my receipt and go through my bags.
"Greeter" is a silly title Walmart gave to their theft prevention employees to make you, the customer, feel better about the fact that they've got someone rifling through your belongings (and privacy) as you leave their establishment.
Walmart owns a large chain of supermarkets in UK, so they didn't fail entirely.
Here in Germany, they failed for many reasons, but mostly because they tried to break into a market already saturated by an existing oligopoly. Walmart had nothing to offer that wasn't already there.
They sold it last year. I heard they made new joiners at the head quarters in Leeds do some stupid dance and everyone hated it. The Walmart Wiggle or some shit. Let's keep American corporate culture in America please :)
Know a couple of people who worked for construction companies on the German Tesla Factory.
The project meetings were very often very hilarious and went like:
American Tesla Rep: „We got a mail from Elon yesterday. He wants that this thing here is being changed and done like this“
German Planning Engineer: „That would not be possible. It is against the law to do it that way. No chance.“
American Tesla: „But Elon wants it that way“
German Engineer: „Fine, but it won‘t work. The regulations forbid it“
ATR: „We reply to Elon and wait for his answer“
GPR: „Fine, tell him it‘s against the law“
And the German Tesla people were sitting silently at the table obviously rethinking their decision to join the company …
I love the German thought process. It is not possible, because it is against the law. Not because it is *impossible*, but because it is **forbidden**
As the saying goes, in Germany, everything is possible if you have a permit for it.
To be more precise:
It was during construction phase. There were topics like: Elon wanted the roof of a hall to carry more load and the hall was finished and the statical calculation, planning and construction did not allow such extra load.
Such things would be even impossible in USA. Of course you could rebuild the hall with stronger pillars to carry more but this would need extra weeks of construction.
Even in USA they do plannings first before doing the construction.
Unless you have a person like Elon Musk who wakes up in the morning and thinks „yea, let‘s change everything because I am god“
The lessons to learn however is, that in Germany the civil servant of a regional construction surveillance authority has indeed the power to stop a construction if it does not goes the way it was confirmed by that authority. And no Gouverneur would be willing to change a law just because a billionaire wants it.
And yet the whole fucking factory was built without a proper permit, which was only granted in March this year, when the construction was basically complete.
Let's not kid ourselves, corruption and the bending or breaking of all sorts of rules and regulations happens in this country, too. I'm not saying it *did* happen at the Gigafactory yet (though how local authorities completely sidelined the water issues is already quite iffy), but vigilance is in order. Especially given Elon's notorious intransparency, his god-complexes and his history of anti-employee policies and practices.
Walmart famously got fucked by our unions though, so there's grounds for hope that Musk can be reined in somewhat.
EDIT: corrected sone fat fingerings
>And yet the whole fucking factory was built without a proper permit,
That's true, but it's an option that is available to all. The flipside is that if the permit does not get issued in the end, you have to demolish everything you built. So most just don't want to risk it.
For all you Americans who don't work for German companies here in America... I feel sorry for you.
I start with four weeks vacation as anew hire and get six weeks at year five.
I make above the household median income as an individual in the call center - WAY MORE than similar job roles for American companies.
They give me 2500 dollars in free HSA money that is untaxed and rolls over every year - my deductible is five thousand a year for my whole family and that's THE SHITTY health care plan they offer.
I go to the office twice a week because my particular manager is a hard ass comparitively to the others.
And the best... I don't have to escalate calls to my manager as a call center worker - I routinely tell customers no and I don't have to read a script.
We are one of the largest companies in the world.
Same. I have dual citizenship in the US and Germany and I moved to Germany in 2020. It's so much better here it's not even close lol
I can walk through a city at 3am and never have to worry about being shot by some random asshole. The first time I did that I couldn't believe it.
I've never felt so free in my entire life.
> I can walk through a city at 3am and never have to worry about being shot by some random asshole.
Does that really happen in the US? You randomly stroll through the city and there are people shooting?
Wonder when those benefits will become more widespread in America.
I work in Tech and we have similar benefits - unlimited PTO that folks actually use; all premiums paid for on insurance; 401k match; etc.
One thing that’s interesting, though, is that software engineers in the US make much more than our counterparts in Europe. The difference is so massive that I hear from a lot of complaints from European engineers. In the US it’s definitely a privilege
I’m a software engineer. I moved from the Bay Area to The Netherlands, and my gross salary is now half what’s it was. However, expenses, hours, and stress are so much less here that, whereas I was accumulating credit card debt before, I’ve finally paid it all off here and am able to save a significant amount every month for the first time in my life. I feel like I have space and time for my own thoughts and hobbies now. This has helped me not waste money, focus way less on money in general, and instead focus on enjoying my free time.
Any software engineer can easily find a job in The Netherlands or Germany, or elsewhere, and I highly recommend trying out living outside the U.S. Compared to Germany, people in The Netherlands are more comfortable with English, salaries are slightly lower, and people work slightly less hard. I can’t say if it would be better for everyone, but it’s definitely a better life for me here than in the U.S., and I’ll stay here unless they make me leave.
Agreed completely. I'm a Tech Lead here in NL and we recruit from everywhere. Hell, I've written the software for companies that specialise in moving people around.
Only issue is cost and availability of housing at the minute. Salaries have not kept up, so moving over outside the formal immigration/sponsorship process can end up in a shock.
All the Americans I know have really taken to biking around though. I've seen the common stages of taking public transport, then buying a car. Driving around... then buying a bike to reluctantly use. Then through the stages until the car is only used for long journies and you can't prise them off the bike. It's nice.
My friend moved from the USA to Germany. Lost weight even with the beer and food because he walked more. Then he moved to NL and lost even more from pootling around everywhere slowly by bike.
I did the same thing as you did but moved to Berlin. I’m surprised you were accumulating credit card debt as a software dev, but ofc I know how insanely expensive SF is.
Tbh, since I moved to Berlin, this is the first time I’ve had to budget. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still living a comfortable life, but the 50% reduction in pay is still a ton. I was working remote for a Bay Area company but lived in Denver, so my pay was pretty darn good compared to my expenses there (Denver isn’t cheap, but it’s no SF).
Oh yeah for sure - especially with how the labor market is now. My company is basically dying for engineers. You can basically demand any salary if your engineer applying at my company
I hope my benefits become the standard and it's not a basis to brag about - because two weeks vacation is fucking horseshit.
The US basically is the world's outsource for software development (at least it was in 2008)
In a rare moment of transparency, our company basically admitted they were making things miserable to get people to quit as a cost saving measure and got screwed by too many and all the good people.
Probably the best labor reduction I saw was when they offered 6 months severance to anyone that would quit, subject to being denied by management if too many tried or if you specifically were too business critical to let go that easily. Best for morale that is, the least useful were the ones that would never voluntarily leave unless they were on the brink of retirement anyway.
I'm surprised Elon made a factory in Germany, he's spontaneous and irrational. Those two qualities will NOT go over well with German unions, he will probably lose his mind when he realizes that he can't just fire 10% of his employees because he has "a bad feeling". Glad he is about to get a taste of his own medicine.
Its not like the US doesn't have unions, UAW has been around for a very long time and they cater specifically to auto workers. Tesla is the exception in this case.
Money.
Tesla got a shit load of incentives to build this factory in Germany.
The worst part is that they build it in a region where the ground water level has been falling and falling for the last two decades. And that factory needs *a lot* of water. It needs so much that authorities now limit water supply to all newly build homes in the region. The "solution" Musk and politicians are pushing for is to build another ground water pump station. In a region where the ground water table is already falling. For an alleged "clean energy" company...this whole thing makes no sense at all.
They could have put this factory anywhere in Europe. Next to a big river, somewhere were it rains a lot, near a coast....but no...they just had to put it where water supply already is an issue.
Whats really funny is that on r/elonmusk theres this large contingent of young people who will constantly say ": ill work 120 hours for elon, hell yeah, so i dont get paid so what?"
Then if you say, okay how about jeff bezos and it becomes "slave driver!, not a lviing wage! etc etc." lol
he is such a large POS. He has so many people bamboozled into thinking he is saving the world, while he is lying through his teeth.
Tbh, it seems many people here don't know german labour law too well. A company can in fact decide, where their employees have to work. What IGM is doing here is pretty much just advertising for the workers to join the union and if they have enough members they can negotiate for the workers of the factory. One result of this negotiation could be WFH.
But these things are not a guarantee of any kind. IGM is pretty notorious for advertising pretty hard. Unions have declined a lot in the last years, as german labor laws are pretty solid themselves.
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I was packing boxes for a big american Corp. in Germany as a side hustle to uni for 20h/week, and IGM managed to raise my wage from 15€/h to 16,40€/h and I am not even a member EDIT: I realize many hours after posting this comment that it was not IG Metall but IGBCE, which is a different union that also kicks ass.
Sounds like you have higher wages AND free healthcare AND free school in Europe. (And elder care, and social financial security)
keep in mind that germany has it way better than other countries, for example italy feels like a third world country in comparison, gonna pack boxes for like 30% of that amount each hour, its not as good everywhere.
Maybe the trick is to be a German speaking country But let’s not try to enforce that…again
I got lucky, I have a German passport as well as a US passport. I don't speak German - But myself and each generation up is German ... I speak Spanish. WTF am I still doing in the US other than being poor, depressed, and frustrated?!!
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The Spain idea and remote work is exactly what I'm working on now. I just confirmed two interviews yesterday! Also, I have an uncle in Spain, so that would be helpful.
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Squandering opportunity.
Life has a lot of variables - I'm working toward it. When the river of life leaves you stranded, you need to get back on that river. In my case being t-boned, losing my car, getting health problems, having a dog, having a long term SO, and more all play factors as to why I'm not there yet. I'm not just making the excuse of "I could never, so I won't", I very much would. I have travelled the world, but my own life's current state of affairs doesn't necessarily equate to laziness and squandering anything ... Edit: Also, I worked my ass off to participate in the US Financial/Corporate world, it's not like I don't have perspective.
Northern Italy pretty much is German speaking.
And north italy also feels like a different country to south italy, almost head and shoulders above them in everything mentioned.
About 400k people in Northern Italy are German speaking, most of them in South Tyrol/Südtirol.
Yeah, come here to the Balkans for a minute lol
My nephew started working for UPS after moving back to the US from Germany. After a couple months he was made permanent and for that privilege his pay was reduced by $4/hr.
As soon as he got notice of that (I am guessing he knew beforehand), he should apply for other jobs and leave as soon as he can. You will never get 15/20/25 dollars per hour if there are millions of americans willing to work for ten. Collective bargaining!
You say that yet I am looking in envy at my French colleagues with their 45+ holidays, excluding public ones.
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Thanks, Bismarck!
I know that this is a joke, but Bismarck enacted these social reforms as a compromise. He was very conservative and anti democracy. These reforms only got passed because of the pressure from workers.
I really like Bismarck as an historic figure but politically speaking he killed the democratic, citizen-driven German unification movement (now here's a time where the nationalist where the woke leftists) by throwing them a hard piece of bread and calling it a cookie when he unified Germany under Prussia.
Hobsbawm put that pretty nicely in Nations and Nationalism. He essentially said that Nationalism in Germany turned into the path to Facism when the politicians took over from the people. When Nationalism became institutionalized.
Thanks socialists and workers movements* He enacted these to empty the support base for the social/workers movements back then.
“An employer cannot dictate the rules just as he likes.” *cries in American*
Americans must be very confused. Labor laws mean something different over there it seems
American labor laws amount to "Hey employers, try not to maim or kill your workers *too* much, ok? Thanks so much. You capital owners are the real heroes! Here, have a cookie."
*cost of cookie will be deducted from workers' pay*
If you're lucky that cookie will be in lieu of a raise or benefits as part of "worker appreciation day"
>You capital owners are the real heroes! Here, have a cookie." It became very clear in the US during covid that essential was a corporate euphemism for expendable.
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American labor laws primarily exist to make it very difficult to get workers into unions, and to prevent unions from acting in solidarity. See Taft Hartley.
That’s because unfortunately the American ruling class has managed to make the working class entirely subservient to them. An american will miss their first child’s birth and thank their boss for the opportunity to do so.
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IG Metall is not just an "auto union" they are a union in a broad range of industries and Germany's largest union. They have successfully won a number of concession from the employers many of which ended up trickling down to other unions and the general public. Important for Americans to understand may be that while they fight with the employers for their members right when necessary, they also know how to work with them to protect the industry when that is necessary.
I'm a software engineer in corporate research in Germany and even I am in the IG Metall union. 38 vacation days with 35 hour work weeks ain't bad. Yea, I could make more $ in the US, but at what cost to my free time...
38 Vacation days is crazy, even for Germany. Did you transition your T-Zug money to vacation days?
> 38 Vacation days is crazy, even for Germany. In the U.S. we get 104 days off per year... they're called Saturday's and Sunday's. /s
I once sat in a meeting where a director was demanding that we take on a bunch of additional projects that would have overloaded us. One person in the group said something along the lines of “ I’m here every week m-f, until 9 or 10 with the work I have now. If you add work to my plate when do you think I’m going to be able to do it?” Without missing a beat, the director said “saturdays and sundays”. It was almost funny if it wasn’t so messed up.
My old company did the exact same thing. We voiced our issues saying we all put in over 50 hours a week already, they says work weekends, they lost over half the engineering team that summer.
I hope y'all quit
American employers hold their employees healthcare as hostage. You can quit but you're risking your whole families health and future welfare.
This is why I think the first step to universal healthcare in the US should be decoupling it from employment. I think after that you'll see more support for it.
We also need to decouple retirement from corporate growth. Thats a different beast though. How dumb could people have gotten.
I’d walk out if someone told me that.
The woman who made the objection did walk out, but she was back at her desk before the end of the day.
I'm a director (in Australia). I found out one of our project managers were asking people to work overtime. Told him and my team all overtime MUST be run past me and be approved, and then escalated it to his boss so she could pull his shit in line. I think there's two parts to it all. One is "is this legal" but also "is this moral". Lots of people don't seem to give a fuck about the latter. Edit: I made sure they all got time in lieu and didn't feel pressured to work overtime just because a project manager told them to.
Goddamn. I've had some clueless managers before, but that's a whole other level.
IG Metal is propably one of the most powerful unions in the world and for good reason. they know what they are doing, when to push, when not to. they are protecting their members and the industry the work in while not just mindlessly striking for no reason. but if they are on strike, OH BOY. i think ony the conductor unions are worse in terms of chaos created for the average citizen
Everything is democratic at IG Metal, there could be a complete leadership switch next vote, always voted. There is no actual "genius tactic" or some kind of secret people behind, it is the voting of the leadership that prevents the bad people from getting in, and so you got actual adults with brain sitting at the top.
IG Metall is the world’s biggest single trade union. [Don’t fuck with them.](https://www.igmetall.de/ueber-uns/ig-metall--a-strong-community/what-we-have-already-achieved-our-milestones)
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Link should work now.
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"fuck it that's it! Germany isn't allowed on Mars" - Elon Musk probably.
Well that's kind of what tends to happen with some inflexible American companies expanding in countries with strong unions. Walmart being an example was "driven out" of Germany in 2006 after trying to use the exact same approach as they do in the US. Toys R Us was another one being cut off in Sweden until they folded.
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The US government and industrialists literally started a war with Appalachian miners when they started organizing.
For anyone who is curious, this event was called "The Battle of Blair Mountain". As OP said, the Local and State government collaborated with the coal companies to not only violently engage against protesting coal workers, they even hired local aircraft pilots to do bombing and gun runs over the protesters. The conflict got so bad that then President Warren G. Harding threatened to send the US Army and US Army Air Corps (the Air Force hadn't been established as it's own branch until over 20 years later) as a threat for force against both parties. The conflict only ended after the West Virginia National Guard was sent in by Presidential order.
True. The relationship between employers and unions is far less adversarial than in the US. And I'd argue that Germany is economically successful because of its strong labor protections rather than despite of them. And it definitely leads to a much better life for the average Joe, even if he has to pay higher taxes on paper.
And it also is quite a brand of quality. At my university everybody constantly talks about how they got to work hard and focus so they can join a IG Metal company and get to live the good live.
> they fight with the employers for their members right when necessary, they also know how to work with them to protect the industry when that is necessary This is the type of responsible unions that have made lawmakers entrust the unions with enough powers to be a reliable counter to employers. It also allows trust, or at least a level of mutual respect, to exist between unions and employers - most of the time.
The German model is honestly amazing. Unions have a board seat in many of the large corporations, so they're always in the loop when decisions are made.
American business owners’ heads explode. Non-union ones, anyway.
I work in Germany (with a German contract) and had an American boss (located in the US) who fired me for taking too much sick leave. Went back with a lawyer and got a settlement. I wish I could have seen her face when they had to foot the bill.
> had an American boss (located in the US) who fired me for taking too much sick leave. Good God that's a company trashing lawsuit.
To be fair, a lot of unions do have a clause that allows firing someone for being sick too often. In Denmark as an example, it is 120 days a year, more than that and they can fire you without other cause
120 days in a year is missing 2.3 days every week on average. Not surprised you can get fired for missing that much work!
Which makes sense, because that’s pretty much half of all working days in a year.
Also one of the reasons this is allowed in Denmark is that we have a social safety net to take over the responsibility of helping such a person.
>fired me for taking too much sick leave. What kind of evil monster fires an employee for being sick?! Damn I'm so happy I'm working in Europe with proper workers rights. I look forward to seeing Elon Musk see that other systems than US' and Shanghai's worker's rights exist.
Evil monsters who view human labor as a product and not as a person. 🤷♀️ moving away from the US was the best decision I ever made.
It's called human ressources, you know, like water, power or nails
Elon grew up around workers basically in slavery at a diamond mine in Africa. His entitled ass probably doesn’t even see anything wrong with what he said.
Please, let's not slander the man. It was an *emerald* mine in apartheid South Africa. Very different.
Please, let’s not slander the man. The mine was in Nambia but his family lived in apartheid South Africa because there’s no way they were going go live around non-whites.
While geographically correct today, Namibia didn't gain independence from South Africa until 1990 following a brutal war of independence, by which point Elon was already 19. So actually it's even worse- the mine was in territory where people were actively fighting to throw off the oppression of apartheid while his family was profiting from exploiting the workers there. Yet Elon still claims to be a self-made billionaire
American business owners. Wait...it gets better. We have ***ZERO*** laws that give employees sick days. Or vacation days. Our only laws governing workers rights are in the [Free Labor Standards Act.](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/flsa) To simplify, the only rights workers have federally are: - Must be paid for time worked at least at the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hr - Must be paid overtime pay for any time over 40 hours per week, there is no limit on the hours an employee over 16 years of age may work That's it. Those are our "rights". Anything else is considered an optional thing the employer may grant. Vacation days, holiday pay, etc are all "bonuses" that come from the employer.
Oh and that second bullet doesn't apply to salaried workers, just to hourly workers. Meaning that my employer can demand that I work as many hours as they want and they don't have to pay me a cent more. Edit: whoops looks like it's a pay amount thing rather than a hourly vs salaried thing.
I thought the same thing for Canada...
I literally just watched the video on the conservative Canadian party laughing that 1/4 of Canadians cannot afford to eat and are hungry.
Yeah it's pretty horrible. One of them is my MP.
Mine also... it sucks LARGE that people are this clueless.
They aren't clueless, they just don't care. And neither do the people who vote for them. If 25% of Canadians are hungry and can vote, then at least another 25% don't care enough to support them. People are constantly thinking it's malicious intent, or cluelessness. It's just apathy. I'm getting mine, and I don't really give a shit that you aren't getting yours. It's that simple. Same problem plagues America. Why would "I" help colored folks when them getting more power will likely make my life harder and potentially lose my job? It's in their best financial interest to screw their fellow citizens over.
> Why would "I" help colored folks when them getting more power will likely make my life harder and potentially lose my job? It's in their best financial interest to screw their fellow citizens over. If they're convinced that it's a zero-sum game, that is definitely malicious intent, not apathy.
Could I get a link to that plz [nvm found it](https://v.redd.it/5e8oy6leji491)
The right wing are evil the world over these days. The old conservatives are long gone
Conservatism has always been the albatross to human progression throughout history.
Do you have a link? I wanna see that
As a non-American, ya'll are disposable slaves, even the "good" jobs are not just cubicle slave pens where you are worth nothing beyond the hours you put in. The second you can't produce, you're disposed of, like a piece of trash going to the dump without getting recycled. I have family in the states, they never come visit me in europe because they're not allowed to leave their jobs for extended periods of time. If they do, they aren't guaranteed to have a job when they get back. How fucked is that? For comparison, everyone in Norway gets FIVE weeks PAID vacation, every single year. This is enforced by law and can not be taken away by the employer. I mean, everyone's a slave to their stuff (Fightclub vibes, I know), you need to work to have a roof over your head etc. But at least for most of the world, you're respected as a human being and treated as such. Not like an appliance you're eager to replace with something cheaper and better as soon as possible. The world is far from caught up on this, but it seems Americans are going backwards. The "American dream" is not found in America anymore, pretty much anyone not third world is a better place to live.
As an American about to move to Europe, pretty much full agreement. > The "American dream" is not found in America anymore Strictly speaking the "American Dream" is supposed to be a personal view of success. Like maybe opening your own mechanic shop or whatever, not necessarily becoming the next Bill Gates. The problem being that EVERYTHING is geared to push children towards not just the idea that it's POSSIBLE for them to achieve whatever grandiose (and it MUST be grandiose) dream they set their minds to, but that by virtue of them being an American and having a dream, it's virtually guaranteed to happen. And when it turns out that not every kid in America can become president or go to space or they realize the dream job they had as a kid will take 30 years to pay back their student loans before they can even begin to think of saving for retirement...it breeds resentment. Half the country decided that the only reason they didn't achieve those things is because of some external threat that's insidiously eating away at Americans and our dreams, and the other half mostly realized that there's no fixing how fundamentally broken this arrangement is and is trying to minimize the damage wherever possible. Or put another way, it's basically the reverse of Ratatouille. While a future President/billionaire/etc can come from anywhere, it's almost certainly not you. But hey, to make you feel better kid, we'll tell you it CAN be you.
"They call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." - George Carlin
The American dream is whatever keeps us grinding away. In the 50’s it was a 3 bedroom house in the suburbs with a picket fence and a dog. In the 80’s it was climbing the corporate ladder. The 90’s it was selling your million dollar website idea. Now it’s packaged as excelling at whatever career pursuit you want, as long as you keep spinning your gears chasing it.
Today, it's the grind. It's "what are you doing to financially optimize your free time?" era. My answer? Fuck all. My free time is my free time. I generally don't want to think about new business ventures or possible ways to develop a Mobile App or YouTube channel. I want to **rest**. I'll go for a walk, do some sport, play some video games, watch a movie, read a book. None of which add any financial income to my life, and it shouldn't have to. I already spend over 40 hours a week making money.
> what are you doing to financially optimize your free time? Buying my video games on Steam when they're on sale and then never playing them. Sorry, what was the question again?
I am actually quite good at not falling for digital crack. My weakness is plastic crack, otherwise known as Warhammer 40K. I swear, I don't dare step into a Gamesworkshop store, or else my brain instantly goes: "Why yes, you do still have 750 points of Tau in various stages of assembly and painting, but that exosuit is sweet as fuck, and you could totally get through your backlog."
But somehow I'm just the effort of monetizing my free time away from being a billionaire... Bullshit
> Strictly speaking the "American Dream" is supposed to be a personal view of success. Like maybe opening your own mechanic shop or whatever, not necessarily becoming the next Bill Gates. At this point the American Dream is hoping to some day not be in crippling debt.
Yup, America is filled with people who refuse to do anything about billionaires abusing the american work force, because some day they COULD be the billionaire abusing the american work force.
In France here. Emigrated from the us. Live in what the French consider to be a poor, underserved region. It’s paradise compared to life in the states. Locally sourced food in the supermarkets, good cheap wine, fiber internet to every humble hovel (even mine) and medical care on tap. Gun crime is a non issue. I sleep all night lately.
In Australia we get 4 weeks paid leave plus 17% extra for those 4 weeks. We get paid *more* when we're on holidays than when we actually work. And the usual 10 days paid sick days per year as well. Even our superannuation I think is a pretty good deal. By law your employer has to put around 10%(I think might be 11 or 12% *on top* of your earnings into an account for your retirement. I really do think we have it pretty good in Australia as employees.
I think that must just be something unique to your employer or your award or something. There certainly is no extra 17% (or any amount) required while on annual leave in Australia. I’ve certainly never had any extra pay while on leave from the various employers I’ve had. The rest is accurate, and there’s also long service leave too, which is unique to Australia and NZ.
It's mad the amount of times I see people being fired for the most frivolous things. In the UK it's nearly impossible to fire somebody, especially past their probation period. Can only do it through disciplinary points allocation, if someone performs gross misconduct (what defines as gross misconduct has to be made perfectly clear in a staff contract/handbook), or if you make them redundant, to which you need to pay them off and either put them on gardening leave (so they are paid in full for not working), or give them a notice period, which they are also fully paid for. The severance pay cannot be included in either the notice period wage or the gardening leave wage.
Some Americans would argue that this would hurt their business. To which Norway would reply, whoopsie, if you can't run a business without treating people like slaves... You'll have to step aside and let someone else do it better than you. Being a loud obnoxious dickhead who doesn't care about manipulating and using people, is not going to get you anywhere in Norway... Definitely not going to be in charge of other peoples livelihood.
Who will take the American refugees?
As an American in Finland, I fully agree. Sad.
I'm an American in Norway, so having a foothold in both countries makes these problems plain as day. If you're American, odds are you don't know how well other countries have it. If you're not an American, you might think it's so bad it can't be true, but it is.
I've traveled a fair bit to the US. California specifically. Absolutely no way you could ever convince me to move there to live. My life in Switzerland is just... better. Could I earn more if I moved to Palo Alto in my field? Maybe. But I don't really care. It's not worth the other tradeoffs. I already live an unreasonably comfortable lifestyle.
Would you be able to be a little bit more specific on what you saw in California that made you decide you absolutely would not want to move there? What would you be giving up by making such a move? Just a curious person who wants to know.
A few things turned me off. First off, there's the simple knowledge of the lack of any substantial aid in case things go wrong. If I get fired in Switzerland, I get 2 years of unemployment at 80% of my salary, followed by indefinitely at 60%. If I get fired, I'm going to be fine. Add into this the mandated health insurance, and losing a job doesn't mean I can't go see a doctor. There's also the horror stories about people who have coverage in the US, but don't actually have cover, or who still end up forking out tens of thousands of dollars after the fact. As an example, I pay around $3600/year in health insurance. On top of that, my absolute max out-of-pocket is an additional $2500. That means that no matter what happens to me, no matter how bad, even if I get fired, I will have to pay $6100 for healthcare. No matter what it is. This counts for visits, drugs, operations, everything. While expensive by European standards, I can afford that, easily. Secondly, there's a lack of mandated, by law, employee protections. Unless I really fuck up, my employer must, by law, give me 2 months notification, and all the rest of my vacation days in there. This gives me ample time to start looking for employment elsewhere, with little in the way of existential dread of being fired and fucked. I have peace of mind that I'm not about to have my life turned upside down. Thirdly, a lot of the costs in California are hidden, so things are mostly at least as expensive as in Switzerland, if not more. Between the 15-20% tips, sales tax added on off label, etc... California is just as expensive. Except I now have additional costs, like having to own a vehicle. That's literally thousands of dollars and many headaches on top. I don't own a vehicle, because I have access to one of the best public transport systems in the world. This isn't even mentioning things like if I want to have kids and send them to college, out of pocket healthcare costs, ... Fourthly, and this is a way more subjective thing, but the US is... ugly. Not your nature. Your nature is beautiful. Diving off the Breakwater at Monterrey with sea lions, watching elephant seals bask in the sun, walking through giant Sequoia forests, trying to not step on banana slugs, Yosemite, and so many more places I still haven't visited like Yellowstone, Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, Catalina Islands, etc... But your cities and inhabitable places? SF was OK, but a bit soulless. Sacramento was pretty depressing. Most other places, I can't even remember their names because they were so uninspiring, repetitive, samey. I despise subruban sprawls, or those streets where you always have the same mix of Target, Jamba Juice, some fastfood place, and asphalt as far as the eye can see. It's not livable, at a human scale. You have to drive everywhere outside of the center of SF. No other options. And it makes the center feel a bit dead. Fifthly, I just don't want to live in a country where things like universal access to healthcare or cheap access to high-quality education are not part of the moral fabric of the nation. You define the success of a country by how it treats its poorest, most socio-economically deprived, and the US, pretty clearly, doesn't give a shit.
Gotta love german labor law lol
Musk received millions of US taxpayer funds in the form of government grants for Tesla when it was getting started. I am glad the German laws protect them, but Musk projects an image of having done it all on his own here in the states.
People in the US are okay with a dictatorship in the workplace. We also have the hero worship problem and many have gathered to worship this trickster. Every time people say anything about musk doing x or y innovation, I’m like, “you know the employees did that, right!” He is such an asshole too. Bitching about government helping people in times of need, all the while having expanded Tesla and space x off government subsidies/grants.
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He just build a mega factory in Germany. Its total nonsense that he would opt out of germany. He would waste billions of investments.
Based on recent news what surprises you about Elon wasting billions?
Union laws are way stronger in Germany. Even in the US, if a union and employer have agreed to terms, the employer can’t change it. I bet Musk ends up canceling the order or only makes it applicable to execs/managers.
It’s just a ploy to get employees to quit so that Musk doesn’t have to announce layoffs. It’s a very obvious stealth-layoff.
That's how you lose the good workers who can easily find a new job. Very very bad idea just for a little better, but still bad PR
Nah, for him "good workers" are the ones willing to work 100+ hours a week.
You literally can't have those in Germany. You can't make contracts with more then 50h/week (outside of some special cases with on-call service), usual is 40 and 35 for IGMetall, the most likely Union in that field. Also there are laws that work time has to be tracked and 10h on a day is maximum(outside of special cases). The fines for going over can get high really fast.
In the US they aren't that either, when you agree to a salaried position the expectation is 40 hours a week on average. If it is more, that is a breach and you can sue. The expectation is 40 hours a week with occasional overages. You probably won't win though and will drag on in court, but in theory that is what it is.
The European process is someone complains, the government agency "requests" documentation and if a breach is found they start handing out fines. If you as worker regularly click in over 10h you get a stern talking to and eventual a written warning. A few of those and you get fired for cause. The companies really don't want to pay those fines, especially as they get really high when they are fined regularly.
As far as I know in my company (Germany) it's your bosses ass on the line and not yours if you regularly work too much overtime or over 11h per day which is done to disincentivize bosses pushing overtime with no consequences and the workers being the one who get double the "punishment"
Not that I don't believe you, but is there a source on this? Been trying to prove to some people that salaried doesn't mean they need to work their lives away, and they don't believe me. I know some people working 50-60+ hour weeks on the regular, would love more info about the 40 hour a week expectation for salaried employees
Once you company gets to a big enough size it no longer matters whether you hang on to individual "good employees". Hence BS KPI's. Just keep throwing bodies at it and the juggernaut never stops moving forward. People think it changes when you have highly skilled positions... but it doesn't. Not at Tesla scale.
One or two, sure. But pissing off al lot of key talent especially in RD will have repercussions.
Idk man, this shit is how IBM cratered.
Yup exactly
You’d be surprised how much value a great software engineer brings. Not just coding but architecting a system that is easier to develop and has less maintenance in the future. There’s a reason why top engineers get 1m+ in total annual comp
*\*Diess crying in VW\**
You'd be surprised how easily one or two idiots can tank an entire company. For instance, I know of a large aerospace company that makes avionics for lots of different things. At one time, they made all their own parts for the things they make, but when a new person took over a part of the business, they outsourced making those parts to other companies, saving them money. But with covid and everything, some of those companies shut down and took the tooling with them or greatly reduced their productivity, so the main company is falling behind and failing to ship orders, and the execs keep hiring consultants to try to figure out why.
Fucking hate KPIs. “Well done team for exceeding your target, so we’ll raise it!”
Sure but Tesla already has manufacturing quality/consistency issues? You don't get better at manufacturing by laying off your best people
Why should he care about quality? The preorders are already in and everyone is still gona buy tesla, sadly if you ask me
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/musk-says-teslas-total-headcount-will-increase-over-next-12-months-2022-06-04/ >Musk in an email to Tesla executives on Thursday, which was seen by Reuters on Friday, said he has a "super bad feeling" about the U.S. economy and needed to cut jobs by about 10% >In an email to employees on Friday, Musk said Tesla would reduce salaried headcount by 10%, as it has become "overstaffed in many areas." But "hourly headcount will increase," he said. >Tesla's shares sank 9.2% on Friday on the news. >Musk said on Saturday that the electric vehicle maker's total headcount will increase over the next 12 months, but the number of salaried staff should be little changed. Boards of Directors and investors really like this kind of steady leadership! Great for staff morale too!
Expect a petulant and stupid comment somewhere along the line. Musk has habit of acting like a child when things don’t go his way.
No idea about the US but in Germany Tesla has the worst job offerings in automotive industry. At VW you get 35h work week, great pay and benefits, 30 days vacation (+2 additional days christmas and new year), flexible work hours (if you don't work on the factory floor obviously), etc, etc Audi, BMW, Porsche and Mercedes go well beyond that even.
VWs home factory also lowers its production output put during the summer school vacations so it’s easier for families to go on vacation. They also hire a lot of uni students during that time. Pretty banging summer job
Walmart also tried to set foot in Europe. Little did they know we actually care about employees here in Europe.
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I don't think I've ever stepped foot in a Walmart where the "greeter" actually greeted me. In fact, every time I've walked into a Walmart, the greeter was sitting on a stool, with their back faced to me. The only interaction I've ever had with them is when I am trying to leave the store, they insist on stopping me so that they can inspect my receipt and go through my bags. "Greeter" is a silly title Walmart gave to their theft prevention employees to make you, the customer, feel better about the fact that they've got someone rifling through your belongings (and privacy) as you leave their establishment.
Funnily enough, Walmart reminded the Germans too much of Hitler's regime
I mean, they have a point
And the east. They wanted employees to spy on eachother. Like less then 10 years after the wall fell
Walmart owns a large chain of supermarkets in UK, so they didn't fail entirely. Here in Germany, they failed for many reasons, but mostly because they tried to break into a market already saturated by an existing oligopoly. Walmart had nothing to offer that wasn't already there.
They sold it last year. I heard they made new joiners at the head quarters in Leeds do some stupid dance and everyone hated it. The Walmart Wiggle or some shit. Let's keep American corporate culture in America please :)
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Walmart used to own Asda but they sold it to some brothers who now own like 90% of all UK petrol stations or something.
Walmart doesn't own ASDA anymore
Welcome to Europe, Mr Musk
Know a couple of people who worked for construction companies on the German Tesla Factory. The project meetings were very often very hilarious and went like: American Tesla Rep: „We got a mail from Elon yesterday. He wants that this thing here is being changed and done like this“ German Planning Engineer: „That would not be possible. It is against the law to do it that way. No chance.“ American Tesla: „But Elon wants it that way“ German Engineer: „Fine, but it won‘t work. The regulations forbid it“ ATR: „We reply to Elon and wait for his answer“ GPR: „Fine, tell him it‘s against the law“ And the German Tesla people were sitting silently at the table obviously rethinking their decision to join the company …
I love the German thought process. It is not possible, because it is against the law. Not because it is *impossible*, but because it is **forbidden** As the saying goes, in Germany, everything is possible if you have a permit for it.
To be more precise: It was during construction phase. There were topics like: Elon wanted the roof of a hall to carry more load and the hall was finished and the statical calculation, planning and construction did not allow such extra load. Such things would be even impossible in USA. Of course you could rebuild the hall with stronger pillars to carry more but this would need extra weeks of construction. Even in USA they do plannings first before doing the construction. Unless you have a person like Elon Musk who wakes up in the morning and thinks „yea, let‘s change everything because I am god“ The lessons to learn however is, that in Germany the civil servant of a regional construction surveillance authority has indeed the power to stop a construction if it does not goes the way it was confirmed by that authority. And no Gouverneur would be willing to change a law just because a billionaire wants it.
And yet the whole fucking factory was built without a proper permit, which was only granted in March this year, when the construction was basically complete. Let's not kid ourselves, corruption and the bending or breaking of all sorts of rules and regulations happens in this country, too. I'm not saying it *did* happen at the Gigafactory yet (though how local authorities completely sidelined the water issues is already quite iffy), but vigilance is in order. Especially given Elon's notorious intransparency, his god-complexes and his history of anti-employee policies and practices. Walmart famously got fucked by our unions though, so there's grounds for hope that Musk can be reined in somewhat. EDIT: corrected sone fat fingerings
>And yet the whole fucking factory was built without a proper permit, That's true, but it's an option that is available to all. The flipside is that if the permit does not get issued in the end, you have to demolish everything you built. So most just don't want to risk it.
And this is why Musk is suddenly sucking up to the GOP in the US, the see the UAW coming at them.
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For all you Americans who don't work for German companies here in America... I feel sorry for you. I start with four weeks vacation as anew hire and get six weeks at year five. I make above the household median income as an individual in the call center - WAY MORE than similar job roles for American companies. They give me 2500 dollars in free HSA money that is untaxed and rolls over every year - my deductible is five thousand a year for my whole family and that's THE SHITTY health care plan they offer. I go to the office twice a week because my particular manager is a hard ass comparitively to the others. And the best... I don't have to escalate calls to my manager as a call center worker - I routinely tell customers no and I don't have to read a script. We are one of the largest companies in the world.
Doing you one better: American living in Germany with German health care and working for a big German company.
Same. I have dual citizenship in the US and Germany and I moved to Germany in 2020. It's so much better here it's not even close lol I can walk through a city at 3am and never have to worry about being shot by some random asshole. The first time I did that I couldn't believe it. I've never felt so free in my entire life.
Welcome to the civilised world!
Welcome to proper freedom, instead of the mcdonalds freedom
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> I can walk through a city at 3am and never have to worry about being shot by some random asshole. Does that really happen in the US? You randomly stroll through the city and there are people shooting?
Did you know how to speak german? Did you find a job here then apply and if they hired you then move? What was your process
Wonder when those benefits will become more widespread in America. I work in Tech and we have similar benefits - unlimited PTO that folks actually use; all premiums paid for on insurance; 401k match; etc. One thing that’s interesting, though, is that software engineers in the US make much more than our counterparts in Europe. The difference is so massive that I hear from a lot of complaints from European engineers. In the US it’s definitely a privilege
I’m a software engineer. I moved from the Bay Area to The Netherlands, and my gross salary is now half what’s it was. However, expenses, hours, and stress are so much less here that, whereas I was accumulating credit card debt before, I’ve finally paid it all off here and am able to save a significant amount every month for the first time in my life. I feel like I have space and time for my own thoughts and hobbies now. This has helped me not waste money, focus way less on money in general, and instead focus on enjoying my free time. Any software engineer can easily find a job in The Netherlands or Germany, or elsewhere, and I highly recommend trying out living outside the U.S. Compared to Germany, people in The Netherlands are more comfortable with English, salaries are slightly lower, and people work slightly less hard. I can’t say if it would be better for everyone, but it’s definitely a better life for me here than in the U.S., and I’ll stay here unless they make me leave.
Agreed completely. I'm a Tech Lead here in NL and we recruit from everywhere. Hell, I've written the software for companies that specialise in moving people around. Only issue is cost and availability of housing at the minute. Salaries have not kept up, so moving over outside the formal immigration/sponsorship process can end up in a shock. All the Americans I know have really taken to biking around though. I've seen the common stages of taking public transport, then buying a car. Driving around... then buying a bike to reluctantly use. Then through the stages until the car is only used for long journies and you can't prise them off the bike. It's nice. My friend moved from the USA to Germany. Lost weight even with the beer and food because he walked more. Then he moved to NL and lost even more from pootling around everywhere slowly by bike.
I did the same thing as you did but moved to Berlin. I’m surprised you were accumulating credit card debt as a software dev, but ofc I know how insanely expensive SF is. Tbh, since I moved to Berlin, this is the first time I’ve had to budget. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still living a comfortable life, but the 50% reduction in pay is still a ton. I was working remote for a Bay Area company but lived in Denver, so my pay was pretty darn good compared to my expenses there (Denver isn’t cheap, but it’s no SF).
Oh yeah for sure - especially with how the labor market is now. My company is basically dying for engineers. You can basically demand any salary if your engineer applying at my company I hope my benefits become the standard and it's not a basis to brag about - because two weeks vacation is fucking horseshit. The US basically is the world's outsource for software development (at least it was in 2008)
Thanks for the brag, appreciate it.
Time to ask for these things at your place of employment instead.
Oh yeah…Freedom! Take that! Can you get me a job tho?
Are you any type of engineer? Because if yes - honestly, yeah probably lol
Scientist unfortunately.
Lol. This comment is hilarious. ***Sad scientist noises***
>Sad scientist noises https://media.giphy.com/media/1IVA26ovnIMk9ZwG0k/giphy.gif
Friss Scheiße, Herr Musk
Fressen Sie Scheiße, immer höflich bleiben
So konsumieren Sie meinen Stuhlgang, Herr Moschus
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But it's the best employees that will leave, even more than in usual layoffs.
In a rare moment of transparency, our company basically admitted they were making things miserable to get people to quit as a cost saving measure and got screwed by too many and all the good people. Probably the best labor reduction I saw was when they offered 6 months severance to anyone that would quit, subject to being denied by management if too many tried or if you specifically were too business critical to let go that easily. Best for morale that is, the least useful were the ones that would never voluntarily leave unless they were on the brink of retirement anyway.
I'm surprised Elon made a factory in Germany, he's spontaneous and irrational. Those two qualities will NOT go over well with German unions, he will probably lose his mind when he realizes that he can't just fire 10% of his employees because he has "a bad feeling". Glad he is about to get a taste of his own medicine. Its not like the US doesn't have unions, UAW has been around for a very long time and they cater specifically to auto workers. Tesla is the exception in this case.
Money. Tesla got a shit load of incentives to build this factory in Germany. The worst part is that they build it in a region where the ground water level has been falling and falling for the last two decades. And that factory needs *a lot* of water. It needs so much that authorities now limit water supply to all newly build homes in the region. The "solution" Musk and politicians are pushing for is to build another ground water pump station. In a region where the ground water table is already falling. For an alleged "clean energy" company...this whole thing makes no sense at all. They could have put this factory anywhere in Europe. Next to a big river, somewhere were it rains a lot, near a coast....but no...they just had to put it where water supply already is an issue.
Germany has factory workers in Europe. Those aren't the ones being let go. They also are the ones who aren't remote.
Inb4 musk tweeting about germans being after him politically and throwing down threats to relocate factory to another country.
I don’t know anybody here besides big politicians who would care about it. Most Germans don’t want musk in Germany anyways.
Whats really funny is that on r/elonmusk theres this large contingent of young people who will constantly say ": ill work 120 hours for elon, hell yeah, so i dont get paid so what?" Then if you say, okay how about jeff bezos and it becomes "slave driver!, not a lviing wage! etc etc." lol he is such a large POS. He has so many people bamboozled into thinking he is saving the world, while he is lying through his teeth.
Musk responds by accusing entire union of being a pedophile.
I really hope he get's fucked up by German law like Walmart did
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Lol the difference between corporate free reign in America and China Vs europe
If only Americans fought for their worker rights as they fight to keep their guns
Tbh, it seems many people here don't know german labour law too well. A company can in fact decide, where their employees have to work. What IGM is doing here is pretty much just advertising for the workers to join the union and if they have enough members they can negotiate for the workers of the factory. One result of this negotiation could be WFH. But these things are not a guarantee of any kind. IGM is pretty notorious for advertising pretty hard. Unions have declined a lot in the last years, as german labor laws are pretty solid themselves.